More Trouble Than You're Worth
by Pandoru
Summary: It's come to my attention that there aren't too many Devils Nest gang stories on this site. And when I find one, the gang usually dies in the first chapter and it becomes an Oc story. So here's my premise: Out of necessity Greed hires on a completely ordinary human being to work for him. Not totally an AU but it won't be crossing the main story. A day to day life sort of story.
1. 2500

AN: Hello there :3 Thank you for reading my story! Hopefully you like it. This is my first fan fiction, so please be kind. I know my grammar and punctuation aren't the best T_T Sorry about that, I've been having trouble getting in contact with beta readers. Reviews, messages and Constructive criticism are wonderful, but not required

**Important:** 1 cen= 1 penny, 100 cens= 1 dollar.

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Chapter 1: Twenty Five Hundred

"Wa-was my cooking not good enough?" A short full-figured teenager asked the old man on the other side of the cafe order window.  
"No, no your cooking was superb." He replied, stroking his elegantly groomed beard.  
_'You didn't make the cut brat. Now stop bitching and get out of the way for the people who have a reason to be here!'_ Greed mentally snapped at the back of the girls head. The little conversation the pair was having had costed him at least two minutes. Of course he was keeping track, time was another one of the many, many things he was greedy about.  
"It's nothing to do with skill, miss Mary." The chef said with a shake of his head. " I just don't have the money to hire anyone more right now."  
"Oh." The girl he called Mary cast her eyes down "Well I understand, thank you for your time" She said with a small bow and left, looking very depressed. Greed couldn't have cared less about any of that though, all he was thinking about was that he was one step closer to real food. He didn't need to eat nearly as much as a normal human, but he could taste just the same. He'd sworn that if he had experience any more canned food, or Roa's attempts at "meals" he would rip his tongue out. Not that, that would really help, it would just grow back.

"Man I really feel bad for her." Said a teen bussing a table right behind Greed.  
"I know what you mean." Added a passing by waitress "She's trying to get a job so she can have money for school, but it looks like all the other university freshmen beat her to it."  
"Yeah, she said something about trying every shop in town. She must be desperate by now." Another bus boy commented.  
"Poor kid." The waitress said "It's a shame, chef said she was a really good cook too."  
Greed gave a mental jerk, he couldn't help but hear the conversation and an idea was forming in his mind.  
_Looking for work,  
Desperate,  
Good cook._

His mouth watered a little bit as he grinned at his own intelligence. In one sweeping movement he left his place in line and was out the door. He looked back and forth as he exited the shop, luckily the girl was still in sight and was walking straight down the street.  
_'Okay, I have to make this look smooth.' _Greed turned down an alley to his right and ran so he could head her off further down the block.  
_'Phase one complete'_ He smirked when he saw the same downtrodden figure coming toward him. _'Gotta time this just right.' _He thought as he leaned against a building wall in a suave manner. He actually put much more effort into looking cool than people thought.  
The girl came closer. Then she was even with him. One step past. Two steps past…  
"Hey, kid!" Greed interjected, as he straightened up. The girl jumped nearly a foot in the air at his unexpected call. She turned around sharply and gave Greed a 'Are you talking to me?' look.  
"Yeah, you." He said as he took a step toward her "I hear you're looking for a job."  
The young woman looked him up and down a few times.  
"Sorry mister, but I don't think I'm interested in any kind of _work_ you're involved in." She said flatly.  
"Geh! It's nothing like that!" he barked offended. "Why's everyone think I'm some kind of pimp!?"  
The girls grey eyes darted from his sunglasses, to his furry vest, to his leather pants as she quirked an eyebrow.  
"How did you know I was looking for work?" She changed the subject while Greed glared at her for the look she'd given him.  
"Couldn't help but over hear you in that café" he said, expression softening. He continued before she had a chance to wonder how he'd gotten ahead of her. "The staff were saying you needed money and that you were getting desperate-" _'Uh-oh, guess I said that wrong.'_ He thought too late, as the girls face tensed and she quickly started walking away.  
"Shit" Greed muttered under his breath. "Wait up!" he called as he sped to keep pace with her. It wasn't difficult, he had nearly a foot of leg length in his favor. "Come on! I told you it wasn't like that!" he said, but he must have been making himself sound worse, because her pace just kept increasing.  
"Look, I need a cook okay?" He called.

It might have been what he said, or it could have been the faint desperate edge to his voice but something made the girl stop and turn around.  
"A cook?" She repeated, a shocked look now on her round, pale face.  
"Yeah," Greed said as he ran a hand through his dark spiky hair. "No one in my crew knows shit about cooking and if I have to eat any more dried food I might actually die." _'And trust me, that's a lot harder than you think, kid.'_ he added mentally.  
The teenager didn't say anything but she did turn to face him fully, Greed took it as an invitation to continue.  
"You'd cook two meals a day for me and my subordinates, and handle the grocery shopping." He didn't think it was a bad work agreement, especially for having come up with it in a few minutes." Whadaya say kid?"  
The girl looked at him and bit her bottom lip, he couldn't tell for sure what she was thinking but he could guess what was going through her head. The girls mind was at war over his seemingly sincere words and his appearance. Her desperate need of cash versus a life time of being taught to avoid people like him. She tore her eyes away from Greed and fidgeted the hem of her simple black dress.  
"I don't know mister" she mumbled after a few minutes. "Maybe you should find someone else" with that she started to turn away.

But Greed didn't want someone else. He had already decided that he wanted _this _person and damn it, he was not going to lose! It was just another aspect of his greedy nature, he didn't take 'no' for an answer. However, he also knew from his over two centuries of experience that nothing was free, there was always something he had to trade to get the things he wanted  
"I'll pay you twenty five hundred cens a meal." In this particular trade, it happened to be money.

The girl whipped around with speed that could have broken a sound barrier or two. Greed had to contain a bark of laughter when he saw the girls eyes almost literally the size of dinner plates. She stared for a moment just gapping as she did the math, which made Greed want to laugh even more.  
"Twenty five hundred…" she finally repeated.  
"A meal" he finished, a smirk crawling up his face.

If there was a war going on in the girls head before, Greed had to guess that a universal cataclysm was closest to her state of mind then. He watched with barely containable amusement as the girl's face did a marathon of expressions. Her and Greed stood off like that for quite a while but Greed didn't really mind, he knew from the moment that he said 'Twenty five hundred' that he'd won. Besides, watching the girl's inner turmoil was proving to be quite fun. In the end, after much muttering, finger counting and pulling at her short, caramel colored hair she responded.  
"Alright!" she practically screamed at him, red in the face. Greed did his best to keep his smirk down to a crooked grin as he had a little victory party inside his head.  
"But!" her voice broke into his imaginary celebrations. He focused back in on the teen, who was now sporting a very stern expression. "If you try anything, and I mean anything! I'll be calling the cops before you can blink! Got it!" She snapped, pointing a commanding finger at his chest.

Greed stared blankly for a moment. Then he look at the teenage girl. Then looked to her small outstretched hand. Then he burst out laughing.  
What he wouldn't have given to see what it must have looked like as a baby faced teenager, who couldn't even stand eye level with him on her tip toes, try to intimidate him! The image was to funny for him to take!  
After a minute he managed to compose himself and look back to the now very confused girl.

"Alright kid, you've got yourself a deal!" He barked out, still not totally over his laughing fit.

He stuck out his hand to the girl. For a second she still looked very confused, then a spark of realization lit in her eye. She slowly began to lift her hand, then stopped half way up. Greed quirked an eyebrow at her, but she didn't seem to notice. The young woman closed her eyes, took a deep breath and then shook Greed's muscular hand with her small one. Greed tried to give a friendly smile as they shook, but it just looked threatening with his sharp teeth.  
"After you?" he motioned back the way they'd come, toward town. Cautiously she obeyed. And thus the journey began, with Greed still smirking over his new possession, and miss Mary wondering if she'd just made a deal with the devil.

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That's the first chapter :D I have a fair bit of it already written out, so the next chapter should be out by next week!  
PS. If anyone is interested in beta-ing this story for me, please send me a message!~Pandoru


	2. Cast Iron

A/N: Salutation! :D Here is the promised second chapter! I hope you enjoy it :3 This chapter will delve into Mary's character more (but don't worry, no flashbacks or long excerpts from her past, it's just brought up in the dialogue.)  
**Important:** In this chapter I refer to Greed as having a "Purse" What I mean by that is a little bag in which he keeps his money, not the modern definition of purse XD. Since Amestris has a coin based currency, wallets wouldn't exactly work :P

And remember: 1 cen= 1 penny 100 cens= 1 dollar

Chapter 2: Cast Iron

_' Don't talk to strangers. Don't follow strangers. Don't take money from strangers. Your fortune cookie lied, you should __**NOT**__ trust the tall, dark stranger!_

_ 'And yet, here I am.' _Mary thought, taking a break from her mental lecture to look at the man next to her. He was indeed tall and dark, but he was also sneering, leather clad and had a way of strutting as he walked.

_ 'At least he's not covered in tattoos.'_ she thought, noting the one alchemic looking marking on his left hand. _'Wait, is that the only good thing I can think about him?!'_

"So, how long am I going to be working for you?" She asked before she could start to mentally berate herself again.

"Hey, aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself?" The tall man asked, lifting his sunglasses to look at her. Mary noticed his violet eyes for the first time. "I never said you were hired yet, you don't get any job without passing a test first. You don't get in if you suck." Greed didn't really have any intention of not hiring her, if the most she could do was boil pasta she'd be better than anyone he had, but making himself seem to eager was bad business sense.

_'Besides' _ he looked back down at the girl who was gapping at him again _'This kid's way too much fun to mess with.' _He smirked as he let his sunglasses drop back into place.

"Geh-ka- Fine!" Mary snapped, not able to think of a good response. "So what's this _test_ gonna be?" She huffed as she crossed her arms over her chest. Greed chuckled.

"You'll make dinner for me and my crew, if it's any good you're hired." _'Not like that'll be hard compared to what we've been eating.' _He shuddered a little.

"How many?"

"Huh?"

" How many people will I be cooking for?" she said clearly, looking Greed in the face.

"Oh, uh" He scratched the back of his head "There are five of us in all, but some of 'em eat a lot. So you might wanna cook for six."

"Any foods you can't eat?"

" Not really," He took a moment to think of his half-human subordinates "Just uh, try and stay away from beef."

" How much do you want to spend on ingredients?"

_' Sheesh, she asks a lot of questions' _Greed thought _' I guess it means she's taking this seriously though, that's good.'_"As cheap as you can get it and still have it taste good." He replied.

" Alright then, I've got an idea but I'm guessing we need to buy the stuff first?" She noted as they entered the market district of Dublith.

" Yup" He said, pulling out a cigarette. " I'll wait outside though, the shop keepers tend to get a little edgy when I'm around."

Mary snickered quietly, "Wonder why?" She said to herself.

"Watch it." Greed snapped. Mary, who hadn't thought he could hear her jumped "That's no way to be talking to your boss."

Mary mumbled something along the lines of 'Not my boss yet.' Greed watched her a little surprised, he wasn't expecting the girl to be such a smart mouth.

"Oh, I'll need to stop here." She said after a few minutes of walking through the vendors. Greed looked up to see the vegetable stand Mary was indicating, then looked back down to see her stretching her hand out to him. Then he looked up, then back, then up, then back again.

" I'm a flat broke university student." Mary stated when it looked like he wasn't going to get it on his own. "I'll cook for you but I can't afford to pay for **your** food out of my own pocket."  
Greed Jerked, realizing that he hadn't fully thought through the implications of having someone else shop for him. He reached a twitching hand toward his pocket then stopped, the girl looked at him expectantly. He could just follow the kid and pay for the stuff himself, but the people of the town didn't tend to like him much on principal and could nail him with higher prices or sub standard food. On the other hand, she was supposed to be desperate. What guarantee did he have that she wouldn't take his money and bolt? He could out run her easily but she seemed smart and could get lucky. She really didn't seem like the criminal type though…

" Alright!" He barked out after his internal debate, it was quite reminiscent of when Mary had agreed to work for him. "How much do you need?" He grumbled, pulling out a dark red, leather purse.

" Two thousand cens should be plenty." She replied, amusement tugging at the corners of her mouth. She thought how much Greed was squirming funny. He shoved the coin into her hand.

_' At least she didn't ask for much' _" Listen up," he said, raising a commanding finger to the girls small nose. "I want every last cen of change back, ya hear me? Every**.** Last**.** One**.** And don't even _think_ of trying to give me the slip, 'cus I'll catch you and you'll be sorry. Got it?" He finished sharply. The girls eyes widened a little in shock of how scary Greed had just become.

"I got it! I got it!" Mary cried, as she raised her hands defensively.

"Really?" He said, straightening up to his full height.

"Yes really!" She replied, actually sounding a little hurt. "I promise I won't do anything with your money except buy food! I've never stolen a thing in my life, I'm not going to start now!" She added.

Being a homunculus, Greed had far more sensory awareness then any normal person, he also had much more control of when and how his senses worked. If he thought about it a little, he could detect a person's heart beat and listen to it for any sort of change deception would bring about. He listened carefully to the girls pulse but aside from speeding up a little from him startling her, the beat remained even with truthfulness.

"… Alright, go on then." He said in a less threatening tone.

The girl turned and walked several yards to the previously specified vendor, Greed never taking his eyes off her. He watched as the girl and the stall owner exchanged greetings and proceeded to talk back and forth quickly. In just a few seconds, they'd filled up a bag and were ready to complete the transaction. Greed's artificial heart skipped a beat as the money changed hands, then calmed down a little as the teenager thanked the vendor and walked back toward him.

"Here" She said, holding out the remaining cens. Greed snatched them up and counted them quickly. There were over a thousand cens left, he looked down at the girls sizeable bag of produce questioningly.

"How'd you manage to get that much?" he asked as he shoved the coins back into his pocket.

" There are eight people in my family." She said with a little laugh, motioning for Greed to follow her. "You have to get good at bargaining if you don't want groceries to cost a fortune."

The pair walked a little further before Mary suddenly realized something.

"I don't know your name, do I?" In her desperation and confusion, basic manners had completely slipped her mind. Greed stopped and thought back a little.

"Oh yeah, I never did introduce myself." He raised his sunglasses so he could look the girl in the eye. "I'm Greed." he said with a characteristic smirk. Mary looked at him questioningly for a moment.

" Greed… Is that your first name or your last?" she asked. Greed chuckled a little, most people just said _"Seriously?"_

"Neither, just Greed. " He replied, straightening his glasses and walking again.

" Huh." He heard the girl breath behind him. "My name's Mary Calvados." She offered after a few seconds.

" Mhm." He simply replied and they continued on their way.

After introductions they lapsed into a semi-awkward silence, neither really having anything to say.  
"Ah! I need to go in there." Mary interjected suddenly, making Greed jump. This time she was pointing to a store front advertising different kinds of grain.  
It was only took a little struggle to get him to hand over the money. After the first event, Greed seemed to find the girl at least somewhat trustworthy. In a couple minutes she was back with several cens of change and a small bag of rice.

"What are you planning on making with all this stuff anyway?" He asked, greedily retrieving the last few cens.

" It's a Xingesse dish" She replied, going through a mental check list. "You take chicken, vegetables and rice, then fry them up together. It's cheap to make and doesn't use an oven, which is nice since it's summer… Mr. Greed, are you okay?" She asked once she noticed that Greed had stopped walking and was staring off blankly.

"Oh, uh yeah." He said, shaking himself out of his trance. If just the description of what she was going to make could put him in a daze, he really had made a good choice in cooks. That, or what he'd been eating up till then had been worse than he thought. It was probably a little of both.

"So, you just need the meat now right?" He said, running a hand over his chin, really surprised he didn't feel any drool.

"Yup, and some seasonings, but I just remembered something." she replied

"What?"

"Do you own a frying pan?"

"Um…"

* * *

"Yeesh, why's this place so damn big?" Greed muttered as they entered a kitchen supply store. Mary had managed to convince him to come into the shop with her, considering she had no idea what a skillet would cost.

"Well everybody needs this stuff." The girl told him while she visually scanned the shelves. "You sure you don't have a frying pan?" She asked again, not wanting to waste money.

" Frying pans the short flat one with the handle right?" The girl nodded. "Then no, all we have are pots."

"Right then. Ah, there they are." She said and lead him over to a shelf in the corner. "We'll probably need a big one since it'll have to cook for a lot of people." She mused as Greed stared blankly at the frying pan dominated wall.

When he'd gone into the shop, he'd been expecting a few square foot room of random supplies. He hadn't thought he'd see several tall shelves filled with pots and pans of all different shapes and sizes.

"Damn, cooking's more of a pain than I thought it would be." He complained.

"We'll you could always go back to dried and canned food." The teen said absently. Greed swore he threw up in his mouth a little at that comment.

"Anything but that." He shuddered, Mary giggled a little at his reaction.

"So, what kind do you want?" She asked.

"There are different kinds now!?" He replied incuriously.

"Well, there are really only two." The girl said, trying not to let on how funny she thought his responses were. "There's cast iron, which is really durable, but they can rust and food tends to stick to them. Then there's stainless steel, it doesn't rust or stick but they get damaged really easily."

"Hm, which is cheaper?"

"The cast iron." She said, off handedly indicating a pan on the top shelf. "They cost less to process so-"

"Cast iron it is." He interjected, reaching for the big black skillet.

"Geh?! Careful! Cast iron is really-"

**CLANG**

"-heavy" she finished as her and everyone else in the store stared at the fallen pan and a rather shocked looking Greed.

"Coulda warned me." He grumbled, as he bent down to retrieve the half ton frying pan.

" I tried!" The girl protested.

" So, one more stop right?" Greed asked while they walked to the cashier.

" Yep, I just need the meat now" She chirped " Don't worry, the butcher's an old family friend, so I know how to get the good stuff for cheap." She grinned a little mischievously.

* * *

"So, you seem to know your way around pretty well, you live nearby or something?" Greed asked as he led the girl back to his place. Him hefting the colossal frying pan and Mary carrying the food.

"Not really," she replied "We stayed in Dublith for a few years when I was little, but my family lives in east Central."

"If you live in Central then why'd you come all the way down here to go to school?" He questioned in a flat voice, involuntarily becoming suspicious whenever he heard the word _"Central"_

" Well… " She drew out, deliberating whether or not she really needed to tell him. "I thought a lot about staying in central" She started shyly "But the university here in Dublith has the best arts program in the country, so I came here."

"Art?" Greed asked, relaxing some. There was no evident deception in the girls words.  
"Yeah, art. It costs way more to attend a school outside your district though." She groaned slightly "That's why I'm here early. My family can't afford everything, so if I want to stay here I have to pay for it myself."

"If art's your thing then why are you trying to be a cook so bad?" He asked, not entirely at ease yet.

"Pfft, are you kidding?" She laughed. "I can't afford to be choosy about where I work. Cooking's just the only thing people really trust me to do, and I'm good at it so…" She shrugged, then sighed when she realized she was going to have to explain to Greed _why_ it was the only thing people wanted her to do. "It's 'cus of how I look, best I can figure." Mary answered before he could ask, as she shrugged her round, soft looking shoulders again. "And I have asthma, so companies tend to write me off as a liability."

The girls heartbeat stayed as even as ever through the whole conversation.

"So you come to Dublith unemployed and all alone huh?" He was satisfied for the time being that she really was just a naive school kid, the girl really didn't give off the vibe of a liar either. "That's a pretty gutsy move."

"Yeah, I guess. " She said, rubbing the back of her head. "Gutsy or stupid."

" Ah, here we are." Greed said suddenly. Mary looked up and noticed that they'd wandered into the red-light district of town while they were talking.

_' Stupid, definitely, one hundred percent, positively, stupid-stupid move.' _She told herself as she gazed on the bar dubbed "The Devils Nest."

* * *

A/N: How was that? I hope you enjoyed it :3 There are parts where I feel like the structure was a bit awkward, but I hope it didn't take away from the story.

As said before, reviews aren't required, but I'd really love to know what you guys think :3 Thanks for reading! Chapter 3 soon!

~Pandoru


	3. Almost Anything

A/N: Voile! (I hope I spelled that right) The foretold Chapter 3! The Chimera's finally get brought in, in this one :3 I hope I was able to keep them in character. For the sake of the story, I did change around a bit of the architecture of the Devils Nest (Though we only ever see 1 room, so I took the liberty of designing it.)

Now that I think of it, to avoid flames I should probably put a warning at the beginning of the story. For now though, I put one here.

This story is rated T for minor swearing (Kind of a given in Greed stories) and slight innuendo (Also a given) but don't worry. It'll never be more than a passing remark and no smut (Het or otherwise.) Enjoy the story!

* * *

"Oh come on!" Greed whined as Mary stopped and tensed for what seemed like the thousandth time in a minute. She'd nearly bolted when she first realized where she was, it was only the promise of five thousand cens a day that stopped her. Since then the girl had been stutter stepping every few feet and Greed would have to reassure her somehow before she would follow him again. He thought she had finally gotten over it when they'd gotten halfway down the stairs of the basement's side entrance when she stopped again.

"Look kid, It's a principal of mine to never lie, and even if I _was _trying to trick you, do you really think I'd go so far to buy this damn thing and lug it halfway across town?" He said, waving the ridiculously heavy frying pan.  
Mary bit her lip. When she thought about it, what he was saying really did make sense. Predators usually only went after easy targets. In addition to that, if he really had bad intentions he wouldn't have wanted to be seen traipsing all over town with her before she disappeared. The girl closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"You're right, sorry. Let's go." she said, walking down the steps to stand next to him in front of the door. He looked the teenager over one last time to make sure she wasn't going to bolt and opened the door.

The two entered an unfinished but well kept basement hallway, with door-less store rooms on either side. At the end of the short hall there was another door, leading into the rest of the basement.

"Oh good," Greed said, putting his hand on the knob "Most've 'em are here." Before Mary could even open her mouth to ask how he could possibly know that he opened the door.

"Oh Greed, there you are." Said a short, spiky haired man who had a pipe between his teeth "We were starting to wonder where you…" His voice trailed off as he spotted the unfamiliar face "…were…"

"Guys, this is Mary." Greed introduced, pointing to the girl. "She's gonna cook for us."

Mary surveyed her new surroundings. It was a large, open room of the same unfinished stone as the hallway and sparsely furnished with a table, some chairs and two old couches. Next to them sat very well kept red velvet recliner. She also noted a small kitchen in the corner. Overall, it was an entirely normal looking place, not at all what she was expecting.

"Kid, these are Dolcetto, Martel and Roa." He continued, pointing to the broad shouldered man who'd spoken earlier, a thin woman with short hair and a tribal looking tattoo, and a truly mountainous man with long grey hair, respectively.

"Um, nice to meet you." She said with a polite dip of her head. The three muttered sparse words of greeting. They weren't being outwardly adversarial, they mostly just stared at her giving off a thick air of curiosity and suspicion. Mary squirmed nervously.

"Alright, I'm guessing you can take it from here kid." Greed said, either not noticing or not caring about the tension in the room. "I'm hungry, so get to work." He added, suddenly dropping the heavy frying pan into her already laden arms.

" Gah! Okay!" She gasped, knees buckling under the sudden weight. "Geez! At least warn me!" She grunted as she dragged the monstrous skillet and other items to the kitchen. Once she looked busy enough to not notice, the three chimeras pulled Greed over to a far corner of the room.

"What the hell is this Greed!?" Martel hissed, confused and angry.

"Look, she needed a job and I couldn't force myself to eat anymore of Roa's cooking." he whispered back. "No offence Roa." He added, looking up at the big man.

"None taken." He replied, even he knew how atrocious the food he prepared was.

"Okay, but what if she finds out?" Said Dolcetto, eyes flicking over the girl who was rummaging around for a pot. Greed mentally slapped himself, that was the second thing that day he hadn't fully thought through.

"…I didn't really… think about that." The ever honest homunculus muttered through clenched teeth "But seriously, do we ever bring that stuff up even when it's just us?" He reasoned "Besides, we've been too flashy, we're getting more attention than we need. Having her around will help us remember to keep a low profile."  
The trio exchanged looks. None of them could find a hole in their bosses logic, especially in remembrance of a near catastrophe the week before.

_'It was a really good thing that guy was blind.'_ Dolcetto thought with a shudder.

They still weren't at ease about this new 'employee' though.

"You don't think she's fake or anything do you?" Martel addressed the group. "She could be someone from the government."

"Almost impossible." He replied "Everything she's said has been true, and I was the one who approached her. If she was sent after us it would've been the other way around."  
Martel pursed her lips, still feeling unsure.

"What do you think Roa?" She asked.  
Being the oldest, next to Greed, and by far the most rational of the group, the other chimeras often consulted him on important decisions. The half ox man straightened to get a better look at the girl in question. She was on her tip toes trying to retrieve something from a high shelf. Roa watched for almost a minute more before muttering,

"She's not the type." and walked over to aid the short woman.  
The remaining three stared a little shocked at Roa's sudden acceptance of the teen. Though since they all knew of his experience with the government, they supposed he'd have to be able to judge character quickly.

"Satisfied yet?" Greed asked, looking pleased. His expression dropped when he saw that Martel was still anxious. "What's your deal? Do you sense something off about her or what?" He asked.  
Martel bit her lip.

"No I can't tell stuff like that, that's why I'm worried."

"Huh, fine" Greed sighed. "You smell anything weird about her Dolcetto?"

" Uh…" The young man who'd remained neutral most of the discussion stuttered "She uh… smells a little like chocolate." He rubbed the back of his neck.  
The other two stared back at him with dead eyes. Leave it to the half-dog boy to only notice food scents.

"Hey you asked!" He barked at them "I'm just trying to say that she seems totally normal. I actually thought she was just another prostitute Greed brought back till I saw her face." He looked at the taller man "Then I thought you'd _really_ gone and screwed up, literally."  
Greed wacked the dog chimera upside the head.

"Bastard." he muttered "Besides, it wouldn't matter, she says she's eighteen. I didn't do anything!" He snapped at Martel who was giving him an evil look. "I had to promise her I wouldn't try anything before she'd take the job."

"Huuh, well anyway," Dolcetto said, as he rubbed his head "I'm just as apprehensive as Martel, but…" He looked over at Roa and the girl who was talking happily to him "… Roa seems to like her and so does the dog part of me, and it's never been wrong before so…" He let the sentence drift off and went to see what Roa and the teenager were talking about. Though as he passed Martel he whispered. "Don't worry. If something seems off, Greed can just fire her."  
Greed smiled as Dolcetto walked away.

"Happy now?" He asked Martel, glad that his barely thought through plan was going so well. The tall woman gave him a look that said **_'I'm still not sure about this, but whatever for now.'_**Then went and sat on one of the couches where she could comfortably keep an eye on the girl.

Dolcetto leaned against the fridge at the edge of the kitchen, watching as Roa instructed the teen how to use the ancient stove. He'd never figure out how someone could know so many little tricks to appliances but still be so totally useless at cooking.

"So how'd Greed manage to convince you to come to a shady place like this?" He asked, genuinely curious. Mary jumped a little, not expecting him to speak.

"…By the principal that university students will do almost anything for money, I guess." She laughed nervously "Though honestly, I don't know if I would have followed him all the way if I'd noticed where we were soon…er…" She suddenly jerked around and stared at Greed "_You tricked me!_" She hissed darkly.

"Huh?" Greed replied, straightening up in his elaborate recliner.

"You knew I wouldn't follow you into the red light district, that's why you got so chatty all the sudden, you were trying to distract me!"

"Okay two things," He said, indicating with his fingers as well "One, the red light district is _at least_ a block and a half south and two, well it worked didn't it?" He finished shamelessly. "Wouldn't you have regretted it now if you'd run away?"

"Ah!...…I guess…" She muttered after a minute. "Still don't appreciate being tricked though. At least this place isn't how I thought it'd be." Her voice rose.

"What'd you think it was gonna be like?" Greed asked.

"Well, I was kinda expecting some sort of…"

"Harem?" the three Chimeras finished at once

"Exactly!"

"Yeah, that's what we thought when we met him too." Martel added with a laugh.

"Are you're guys' minds always in the gutter!?" Greed shouted in outrage "I can like the ladies without being a freaking nymphomaniac!"  
The four just laughed as Greed sat back down and sulked. He didn't like being mocked, especially by his own men and some half-pint brat, but the exchange seemed to melt the last of the tension between Mary and Martel, who were now bantering back and forth about men.

_'That's good' _Greed thought, leaning back in his recliner "It'd be a pain in the ass if my possessions didn't get along."

Things continued the same way for about half an hour. The too long deprived trio helping Mary prepare in any way they could.  
"Anything to get real food quicker." They'd replied when she asked them if they really didn't mind setting the table for her.  
Greed relaxed in his chair, pleased at how well the girl was fitting in. As the scent of fried food began wafting through the room thought, he started to grow impatient.

"When's that food gonna be ready kid?" he whined.

"In a minute!" Mary snapped back. She was starting to feel a little overwhelmed, especially with Martel looking like she was about to attack the stove and Dolcetto showing the best puppy eyes she'd ever seen. "Sheesh! You'd think you guys hadn't eaten in days!"  
The three chimers looked over at Greed. They didn't have any solid evidence, but they were all pretty sure that the homunculus had been fasting since his declaration of war on canned foods the week earlier. Greed avoided looking any of them in the eye.

"Oh by the way," Mary said, adding the last few seasonings. "Greed said I'd be cooking for five, but I only see four of you."

"Oh right, Bido's not here." Greed said rising from his chair. "He comes and goes a lot, he'll be back eventu-" He was cut off by the sound of a slamming door.

"I'm guessing that's him?" Mary asked as she turned to see what this 'Bido' was like. Instead she saw Greed bolt out the hallway door and slam it behind him.

"What's his deal?" She asked confused.

"Bido's a…kinda nervous guy." Dolcetto said quickly. "He'd probably spas out if he came in and saw someone he didn't recognize" _'And you'd probably have a heart attack if you saw his tail' _He sweated nervously.

After a minute Greed reappeared, bringing a small, ragged looking bald man with him. He looked up at Mary, then back down and fidgeted with his fingers.

"I'm Bido." he said simply.

"Nice to meet you." Mary replied with a warm smile, "I'm Mary Calvados."

"Yeah, yeah, 'Nice to meet you too' and all that crap." Greed said in Bido's place. "Is the food ready yet?" Mary twitched a little at Greed's rudeness.

"As a matter of fact, yes." She said, filling the last bowl.

The girl carried the dishes of rice and chicken over to the table, then stood back to watch. The gang took their seats, since they were all equally egger, they all dug in at the same time.

"She's hired!" Dolcetto practically screamed the second to food touched his tongue. Bido was huddled over his bowl saying,

"Miss Mary, will you please stay and cook for us forever?" quietly. All of Martel's muscles had completely relaxed, giving the impression she was melting in ecstasy. Even Roa's usual static expression had softened and the corners of his mouth were turned up slightly. Unlike the others though, Greed hadn't wasted any time savoring the dish, he'd inhaled his entire bowl before the exchanges even began. He leaned back, feeling more satisfied than he had in months and saw Mary looking at him with a very self-gratified smirk.

"Why so smug, brat?" he asked, leaning forward. "This just means you work for me now." He finished with a devilish smirk of his own. The girls face went slack, then realization hit and her expression sank into a deep scowl that practically screamed that she'd like nothing more than to whale on him with her ridiculously heavy frying pan. Greed laughed.

* * *

A/N: Ta-da! I hope that went well. :3 I hope the gang seemed in character. Remember, this story is meant to be fun so too much angst or rivalry would bog it down XP Thanks to the people who've followed and reviewed so far! I really appreciate it :D

And a special thank you to any anonymous reviewers, I can't send you a PM so I'll say it here. Thank you!

Feedback is not required, but always appreciated :3 Till next chapter! ~Pandoru


	4. Balcony

A/N: Ta Da! Chapter 4! :D I hope you guys enjoy it :3 I'm really grateful for all the reviews and follows I'm getting. Thank you all :D It's really, really awesome when people like your story (Though most of you probably know that XD) Special thanks to Ms Cheerful, an anonymous reviewer, for your comments :D But you're probably all thinking "Get on with it!" So, here you go XD

* * *

Mary and Greed were sitting across the table from each other in a very businesslike manner. After their heavenly meal had been cleared away, Greed insisted that they sit down and discuss the details of her employment. He was still trying to not seem too eager, more out of pride than anything else though. Mary watched as he pulled out an old key and tossed it to her.

"This is for if you come and the door's locked." He said as she pocketed the item "The side door'll be open unless we're all out or asleep. You're a student right?" Mary nodded. "In that case, come before your first class and make breakfast. We hardly ever eat at the same time every night, so just come around six to make dinner, is that gonna work?"

"Yeah, " The girl replied as she mentally checked her schedule "I can do that."

"Good. So, since we come and go a lot, try and stick to cooking things that we can reheat easily." He continued "Unless I'm here, then make something hot."

"What about the others?" she asked.

"What **about** the others?" He replied in an oblivious voice. Mary peered around Greed at the four behind him. The all gave a unanimous '_ **We know. He's a bastard, but we're used to it.**'_ look.

"Okay, so… I guess I'll be back tomorrow then?" Mary said as she stood.

"Yup." Greed said, then he remembered something he should probably ask "You're place isn't too far away, is it?"

"I've been staying in the hotel district, actually." The girl replied "The dorms are expensive, so I'll start looking for apartments nearby tomorrow."

"Hm, alright then. Roa, walk with her till you get to the safe part of town." Greed was expecting the girl to kick up a fuss, especially after all the trouble it had been to get her to go with _him_ earlier.

"That'd be great actually, if it's not too much trouble." She looked at the big man.

"It's not a problem." He said.

"Oh, so you trust _Roa_ right away, but _I _have to practically drag you here." He grumbled, irritated even more at the amount of headache she'd given him. "What the hell is up with that?"  
Mary gave Greed the same look she'd given him several times that day. This time her eyes flicked over his skin tight shirt, or what she _assumed_ was a shirt.  
Greed mumbled something along the lines of 'Brat' as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Oh wait," she said suddenly "you said I'm supposed to grocery shop, what'll I do about money if I never know when you're gonna be here?" Greed jerked. He'd tried to forget about that issue, figures she'd go and bring it up. Greed didn't say anything right away, he just shook lightly. Mary figured from her earlier experience with him and money that it would be best to just wait.

"When we start to run low.." He finally grunted "Leave a note and I'll-" He chocked a little "I'll put some money out! But you spend even _one_ cen on something besides food-!"

"I remember! Trust me, you don't have to say it again!" She raised her hands defensively, but there was amusement playing at the corners of her lips. "I'm not going to steal from you." She said more seriously. The even rhythm of her heart was testament to her sincere tone.

"Alright, you should get going then. " He said, back in his normal smooth voice "Upstairs is a bar, I don't need brats like you wandering in, so shoo." Mary's expression hardened and her hands twitched.

"I am eighteen ya know. It's perfectly legal for me to go to a bar!" She barked.

"Oh really?" Greed said slyly "You saying you wanna come check it out?"

"Absolutely not, I hate the taste of alcohol." She said flatly. It was Greed's turn to twitch in annoyance.

"Would you just get outta here already!?" He almost shouted.

"I'm going, I'm going." Roa and Mary were already a few steps into the hallway when the girl suddenly tensed and, after a second, turned around.

"Thank you very much for the job! It was nice to meet all of you!" She clipped out then dashed back through the door before any of them could react. Greed stared after the previously smart-mouthed girl.

"Heh, middle class manners." Dolcetto chuckled "Whadaya wanna bet those won't last long?"

"I don't know, I think it's kinda cute." Martel laughed.

"Well it doesn't really matter." Greed said indifferently, though he actually found the girls on and off politeness pretty funny. "C'mon, time to open up shop." he said as he headed toward the stairs. With all the talking Greed had completely forgotten that he felt Mary's heart speed up a little when he asked her where she was staying.

* * *

"I can handle myself from here on out." Mary said as she and Roa entered the light of the district's first hotel.

"Are you sure?" Roa asked "I can walk you all the way, I don't have anything else to do."

"That's really nice of you but don't worry, I'll be fine." She said with a friendly smile. "Thanks for coming this far with me thought.

"Hm, no trouble." He grunted and turned to leave. "Take care of yourself." He waved over his shoulder.

"Ah! You too!" She called out. For all they looked kind of threatening, she liked Greed's 'crew' already. She was also very happy that they didn't turn out to be brothel girls.  
Mary watched Roa's retreating back. Once she felt sure that he wasn't going to turn around she slid into the narrow ally next to her.

_'It's not like I really **lied**.' _Mary rationalized as she pushed a garbage dumpster a few feet down the wall. _'I didn't say anything that wasn't true.' _But she still felt guilty as she retrieved her battered suitcase from a previously hidden niche. She poked her head out to check that Roa was really gone, then made her way back down the street she had come.

_'Wonder if I should just check into a hotel tonight.' _She mused. _'But they charge more the later it gets and I'll only be in there a few hours tops, so what's the point?'_  
She walked about halfway back to the Devils Nest then stopped at an abandoned building she'd scoped out earlier.

_'Just one more night of this.' _she thought hopefully as she climbed onto some crates. _'Then I'll find a place to stay.' _She threw her bag and hoisted herself onto the decrepit building's low balcony. As she did her best to make herself comfortable on the splintery surface, a thought she'd been trying to suppress crossed her mind.

_'If all the other jobs in Dublith have been snatched already, is it gonna be the same with all the apartments?'_ She shook her head. She would worry about those things as they came. Right then, she needed to rest, she didn't want to oversleep and ruin her only chance of paying for her future.

* * *

"What happened to this damn thing? Was it thrown off a cliff or something!?" A short, light haired girl shouted as she kicked a very, very battered stove. It was Mary's second official day as the Devils Nest cook but breakfast wasn't going very well right then. The stove absolutely refused to ignite and Roa, the only person that could make the decrepit thing work, was out.

"Hey, knock it off half-pint! You'll just make it worse!" Greed snapped, but didn't give any indication that he had a better idea. Mary twitched in irritation at her new knick name. Greed had been calling her solely by that since he hired her.

"I have a name you know!" She hissed. The dark haired man stared at her for a moment.

"…Half-pint suits you better."

"I'm not even that small!" She shouted.

"Sorry kid, the half-pint cut off point is right about…" He waved at a spot level with his shoulder "Here"

"That's not fair! You're a tall freakishly tall!"

"He's not _that_ tall." Martel, who'd been lazing around the room, interjected.

"No, you're just freaking tall too." Dolcetto mumbled at a volume he didn't think Martel could hear, the knife hilt hitting his forehead proved him wrong.

"Don't be lonely, Bido's in the half pint club with you." Greed said, somehow completely ignoring the others.

"At least he treats me like an adult." Mary muttered. The others still regarded her as younger than she was, despite her reiterating her age over and over. While she was talking the burners suddenly decided to light. "Uhg! Finally! What, do you only work when no one is looking at you?" She said to the appliance.

"That would explain why it works for Roa, I'm pretty sure he never opens his eyes." Dolcetto said, rubbing a bump on his forehead.

Conversation slowed after that, all of them afraid that the stove would die if Mary did anything wrong. Martel watched the teenager. By then, she'd learned the girl was always twitchy and jumpy, but that day it seemed worse, she could spot dark circles on the pale skin around her eyes too.

"Have you found an apartment yet?" Martel asked, putting two and two together. She almost cried out at the look of pure despair Mary gave her.

"You _had _to bring that up?" The girl muttered. "I've only been able to find two so far, and the rent on them is like the mortgage for a house."

"Well you did pick a really terrible time to come to Dublith." Dolcetto said. "All the people from the western marked crash headed south."

"Thank you Dolcetto, I never would have guessed. I'm mean it's not like **everyone has been saying that to me for the past two months.**" She snapped.

"Uh…Sorry." Dolcetto mumble, staring in shock.

"Huh, no I should be saying that." The girl said "You're right, but I got the scholarship before that all happened and they weren't gonna hold it for me. Trust me, if I knew back then I definitely would have waited a year." She chuckled darkly, then got a distant look in her eye. "Oh, if I did, I'd be home right now…sleeping. I could've spent a year lounging around and paint-Ow!" Mary suddenly exclaimed, pulling her hands away from the skillet. Greed looked over from his chair with condescending disdain in his eyes.

"You burnt yourself…again?" The girl had cooked for him three times and had twice as many burns to show for it.

"Sh-shut up!" She said with tears in her eyes as she went to the sink. "I just need time to get used to cooking so much, besides, I haven't lost any food have I?"

"No but you're about to." Martel said, pointing over to the pan that was starting to sizzle violently.

"Don't underestimate me!" She cried as she snatched the pan up with her left hand, somehow keeping her right under the cool running water. The others wouldn't have thought her short arms could span that distance a few seconds before. "I passed that hellish entrance exam! I can do anything!"

"You do realize that the academics are just going to get harder, don't you?" Mary's whole body slumped a little when Greed said that. The contents of the pan slid precariously close to the edge.

"Food don't taste as good if the person who prepares it is depressed, you know." She stated in an empty tone.

The knowledge that Greed would make her pay for anything she lost gave her the strength to finish breakfast without any further burns, to herself or the food. As soon as she was finished, the girl started heading for the door so she could get an early start on apartment hunting.

"Are you sure you'll be okay by yourself?" Dolcetto asked, really not comfortable with the idea of a girl wandering around alone in their part of town.

"Thanks, but don't worry about me." She said with a confident smile. "There's barely anyone out except me this time of day, as long as I don't dawdle I'll be fine." Before any of them could protest she slipped out the door.

_'Glad I'm out of there.'_ Mary thought as she walked down the street. Suddenly her stomach gave a loud growl. _'There's nothing worse than preparing food and not being able to have any. I don't think I could've held myself back any longer.'_ She laughed. _'Of course, Greed'd charge me sky high if I ate anything.'_ She found that quirk of his character both entertaining and annoying.

_ 'Well, that apartment isn't going to rent itself. At least I can pay for a hotel room if I don't find one.' _

* * *

"Whadaya mean I don't have a room!?" Mary practically screamed at the cheap motels front desk clerk. It had been another long, unsuccessful day of apartment hunting and she wanted nothing more than to sleep, but fate seemed to have other plans.

"I mean just that, you don't have a room." He said, very annoyed at the girl's outburst. "You're not in the bookings."

"I looked you right in the eye and booked the room for tonight!" She snapped, the seedy clerk's yellow stained eyes were not something she'd quickly forget. "Mary Calvados. I was here at eight A.M. I paid four thousand Cens exactly." The man looked back and forth nervously. It was obvious what had happened, someone had come along that he'd been able to sucker a higher price out of while she was gone. Mary sighed, the only way she was going to get her room back was by beating the new price but the D grade rooms were already way more expensive than they were worth.

"You know what? Forget it." She groaned. "Just give me my money back for the room and I'll be on my way. Where's my bag?" The girl asked as the clerk reluctantly handed her four, one hundred cen coins.

"Probably with lost and found." He grunted, eyeing her darkly. Mary ignored him and when to the 'Lost and found office' Which was really just a converted broom closet.

"Ah!" She cried as she rounded the corner. She had made it just in time to see an old man about to make off with _her_ suitcase, she also noted the lost and found operator rolling a few hundred cens around in his hand. It took a lot of arguing, cursing, pointing out her name engraved on the bag and finally a show of her state ID to wrestle the bag from the wizened thief, but in the end she was victorious. Mary quickly made her way out of the lobby, wanting to get away from the three men muttering and giving her dirty looks as fast as she could. Once she was a few blocks away though, she stopped and fell back against a lamp post that had just come on.

_ 'Shit. What now?'_ She cursed. No vacancy signs flashed all around her. Tall apartment buildings that advertised 'No rooms available' stood not too far away. _'Damn, I knew this was gonna be hard, but I never imagined things would be this bad.'_  
The girl could feel tears of frustration well up in her eyes. _'No! no crying!'_ She scolded herself _'I just have to keep at it!'_ She started walking again, mostly just to distract heself. After a few minutes, Mary noticed that she was unconsciously heading for the Devils Nest. She stopped and thought for a moment.

_ 'I wonder…Just for one night…'_ But she shook her head and quickly dismissed the idea. _'No, I barely know them, I couldn't impose like that. Besides, knowing what he's like, Greed would charge me some ridicules amount for a room.' _Mary then looked up and saw that she was at the same abandoned building she'd taken refuge at two nights before.  
The girl scanned the area, she was the only one around. _'Huuuh, guess I have no choice.' _She grudgingly sighed _'Didn't think I'd have to do this again.' _She scrambled up to the same creaky balcony as she thought longingly of how she'd been able to sleep in a real bed the night before.

_'Oh well,'_ She thought, nuzzling against the hard surface. _'This isn't much worse than the beds at that roach motel anyway.'_

* * *

"Of all the damn errands Greed has made us run…" Dolcetto grumbled. "This has got to be the worst."  
It was just after midnight and he and Bido were walking through the streets of mid town Dublith.

"Come on, there are worse things Mr. Greed could ask us to do." The short lizard chimera said, trying to stay positive in light of his friends gloom.

"We're looking for his f-ing fuzzy pimp vest!" Dolcetto barked. "He's got a closet full of them! How the hell did he lose it anyway?"

"Well, apparently he went to meet someone here the other day. He said something about a woman's fiancée showing up before they could-"

"Forget it, I don't wanna know." The dog chimera said, covering his ears. Greed's sex life was not something he was interested in hearing about.

"Look on the bright side," Bido interjected "If he hadn't been in this part of town looking for it, the past few days, he never would have met Miss Mary."

"…Yeah, I guess that makes up for it." He said with a grin, thinking of the meals the past two days "We're gonna be eating like kings from now on!"

The pair walked a little farther, then Dolcetto suddenly stopped. Bido watched as the dog chimera's nose twitched.

"Do you smell it?" He asked, despite his positive attitude, he really just wanted to go home and sleep.

"No but…I smell something familiar…"

_Grooaannnn  
Click Click Click  
**Kreeeee  
**_**_SNAP!  
_**

Something huge fell being the two. Dolcetto jumped nearly his height into the air, then sank into a battle stance as soon as he landed. Bido took a far less bold action, he was across the street hiding behind some trash cans.  
Dolcetto scanned the alley with his enhanced eyes and gave out a 'tsk' at what he saw.

"Tch! Bido, you can come out! It's okay!" He called, sheathing his katana. "Looks like something gave out on this eye sore." He finished with a kick to the ancient building in some sort of attempt to punish it for scaring him. Needless to say, the only thing that got punished was Dolcetto's foot.  
While he was still in the midst of cursing over his possibly broken toes he heard something. The man cast his eyes back to the pile of rubble and watched closely. Then it started moving.

"Oh just our luck, somebody's under there!" Despite his outward annoyance he sprinted over and began sifting through the wreckage. Fortunately, whatever the structure had been before wasn't large, so it was only a few moments before a small figure came free from the debris and started dusting it's self off.

"Hey, you okay?" He asked as he offered the small person a hand when the same scent from before hit his nose. Faintly chocolaty. Dolcetto crouched down to get a better look and his suspicions were confirmed.  
"Wait a sec, Mary? What are you doing out here!?" He exclaimed to a round, pale face.

* * *

A/N: How'd it go? I hope you had fun :3 Muwahaha, cliffhanger! What's gonna happen next time? The plot thickens! _ Okay, not that I've had my fun...

So I made references to characters heights in this chapter. I read somewhere that Arakawa doesn't like character data much, which is kinda nice so details can easily be manipulated, but I find data pretty fun :D so;

Mary: Our heroine stands at a towering 5"4'! (162.5 cm approx) It doesn't sound that short, but from what I can estimate Amestrian women are usually at least 5'6" (Ed (The only character who's height is ever mentioned) is about 5' 4". Winry, Hawkeye and many others seem to have a good 2 inches on him.) Cannon characters I'm just going by estimation.

Greed: 6'3"? 6'2"? Somewhere around there. Martel: 5'9" or so. Dolcetto: 5'7" (Not much flip-flopping from me on that one) Roa:...Closer to 7 feet than 6 feet is all I got XD. Bido: Somewhere around the same height as Mary? I can never decide if he should be taller or shorter. T_T Don't take these as gospel, I'm just making them up for my own enjoyment.

Thank you for reading! While reviews are not required, they are greatly appreciated :3


	5. Halloween Special: Encounters

A/N: Hello :D Thanks to everyone for your reviews and continued support! ^.^ It's really great. **Important:** So, this chapter doesn't follow the main story (muwahaha, I'm making you wait to see what happens next ;p ) This is, as the title suggests, a Halloween special. A little late, but ah well. This chapter is purely meant to be fun. It probably isn't up to my usual standards, I wrote it straight onto the computer instead of writing it out in a note book and trans-scribing it, so please just take it as writing candy (fun, but not substantial.I really love holidays, so I want to include them at least a little here and there :3 and I'm using this as practice for how Mary and the others interact.

**I REPEAT:** This is not following the story arc, I didn't not post things out of order. Think of this as a filler episode. (Four chapters in and I'm already writing filler =_=) sorry, I just really wanted to incorporate Halloween somehow.

* * *

"I feel cheated. It is **_not_** always sunny in the south." Mary grumbled as she, Dolcetto, Martel, Bido and Roa sheltered from the sudden rain storm, under a small awning. They all had errands to run in town that day, so they decided to just go together; a decision they were each starting to regret, as they crowded together uncomfortably.

"Oh come on, you should know that. You used to live in Dublith, didn't you?" Martel asked with a roll of her eyes.

"Yeah, when I was six and we barely even stayed a whole year." She looked out at the streets disgruntled. "I want the fantasy I bought into, dang it!"

"Good luck with that." Dolcetto chuckled. "It usually rains for the better part of Fall and Winter." He laughed again at Mary's look of shock.

A few more minutes passed and the rain showed no signs of stopping. Roa checked the time.

"It's getting late. Greed's not gonna be happy." He said as he looked at his bronze pocket watch.

"Eh, he'd be more pissed if the stuff got ruined though." Mary interjected, giving her full grocery bags a shake. "Still, maybe one of us should run back and tell him…" She looked at the four with her.

"Not it!" Bido, who was usually saddled with messenger duty, said quickly.

"If you think I'm going out there, you're insane." Martel hissed, leaving no room for argument.

"I uh, have to carry the food." Roa excused lamely, though it was true that he made a much better load bearer than messenger.

"Looks like that leaves you middle class." Dolcetto addressed Mary as he lit his pipe.

"Nu-uh!" The teen exclaimed in a child like way. "Everything looks different in the rain. You know me, I'll probably get lost then slip in a puddle and break my ankle or something." She said, finally able to use her clumsiness to her advantage. "Why not you? You're the fastes-"

"I'm not going out there by myself!" He cut her off. It could have just sounded like he just didn't want to, like the others, but there was something odd in the way he phrased the sentence. It almost sounded like he was scared. Dolcetto gulped when the others stared at him, he'd been caught.

"What's up with you? It's not like it's a thunder storm." Martel asked. Being part dog had given Dolcetto a dislike of thunder and lightning, but regular rain had never seemed to bother him.

"N-nothing, I just don't wanna get cold and wet." He said defensively. Dolcetto, was not the most adept of liars.

"No, you're afraid of something, aren't you?" Mary said, noticing how tense the man had become.

"I-I am not!" He barked, but the stutter didn't really lend to truth.

"We've been out in the rain before." Bido said.

"Yeah, you seemed fine those times." Roa added. "Did something happen?"

"Geh!" Dolcetto chocked, then, after a minute he sighed. If Roa was curios, it would be nearly impossible to get the other three to drop the subject.

"Huuh, it's not rain that I don't like." He grumbled, resigned to explaining. "It's being alone in the rain that's bad."

"Bad? Why?" Mary asked, brimming with inquisitiveness as usual. She knew that Dolcetto wasn't the kind to scare easily, so whatever happened to make him afraid of being alone in the rain must have been pretty serious. The short man sighed again.

"Look, I'll tell you but…" He paused and gulped. "You gotta remember, I was barely seven when it happened, it was a lot freakier actually being there too." He said, a little desperately.

"Just get on with it already!" Martel snapped, never one to like waffling. Dolcetto took another deep breath and started his story.

"So, back in the town I was born in it rained, a lot. We were all used to it, but every time it did, there'd always be this little old lady on the porch of this one abandoned house. It didn't matter if it was morning or the middle of the night. If it was raining, she'd be there and once it stopped, she was gone."

"Why were you out in the rain, in the middle of the night when you were seven?" Mary interrupted. She was even worse at paying attention than Dolcetto was at lying.

"You wanna hear the story or not?" He snapped, glaring at her. "Anyway, one day this runaway kid I used to hang out with, Korbin, dared me and some other to go talk to her with him. Three of us went along, wanted to prove we weren't scared, even though she crept the hell outta us. The next time it rained, we went out to meet her."

"W-what happened?" Bido asked nervously.

"Well…nothing really." He replied anti climactically. "She smiled, said 'Hi' did general old lady stuff, but…" The dog Chimera shuddered. "I don't know, there was something off about her, way off. And things got really weird when she said we should come back tomorrow and have tea inside with her."

"I thought you said the house was abandoned." Martel said, raising an eyebrow.

"It _was,_ that's what made it so creepy."

"So, did you?" Mary asked with baited breath.

"You kidding? I didn't even leave the house the next day. None of the others wanted to go back either, the only person that said he would…was Korbin." Dolcetto paused for effect there, secretly really enjoying being the center of attention. "No one ever saw him again after that day."

"Couldn't he have just left? He was a runaway after all." Martel stated bluntly, not nearly as caught up in the story as Mary or Bido.

"That's what we told ourselves, but then things got even stranger. It rained a few days later. I'd been freaking out about the lady the whole time. My uncle caught on and made me take him to her. She was there, in the same spot as always, but" He paled a little. "My uncle couldn't see her."

The steady fall of rain was the only sound for several moments.

"…So," Martel said at length, looking contemplative. "You're afraid of little old ladies?" A smirk appeared on her face.

"Damn it! I was seven! It was scary as hell then and, y'know what? It still is now!" Dolcetto shouted at her, though he really should have been expecting that reaction from Martel.

"Are you sure your uncle really couldn't see her?" Mary asked skeptically while Martel snickered. "I mean, any of _my_ uncles would trick me like that in a heartbeat." Before Dolcetto had a chance to be surprised that he'd never thought of that, Martel spoke again.

"So Dolcetto," She chocked between giggles. "Do old ladies rate above, or below thunderstorms and pinching collars in scariness?" Everyone expected Dolcetto to yell again, for a second it looked like he would, then his eyes suddenly flicked to the side.

"Martel, you dropped two thousand cens."

"Huh, seriously?! Where?" The next second Martel was shoved out from under the awning. Mary couldn't stop herself from giggling at Martel's dismayed shriek .

"You kinda, had that coming." She and Dolcetto laughed.

"Why you!" She screeched as she lunged for him. The man suddenly slid next to Mary and took one of her grocery bags.

"Anything happens to the food and you pay for it Martel!" He called triumphantly, clutching the brown paper bag close to his chest.

Mary wisely, sidled as far as she could from them, to the other side of Roa. Bido did the same, both of them afraid of accidently getting incinerated by Martel's death glare.

"So, do you believe in ghosts?" Roa asked no one in particular, he was just trying to disengage the mental show down between Martel and Dolcetto.

"Well, I think that's kinda obvious for me." Dolcetto said, also wanting to distract Martel from imagining horrible demises for him.

"I'm not, once you're dead, you're dead." Martel said, matter-of-factly, then proceeded to glare at Dolcetto.

"What about you, Miss Mary?" Bido asked, never really able to shake the habit of calling her 'miss'. Mary thought for a moment.

"…Yeah, I do." She said, with a look that she was remembering something.

"Did you see one?" Roa asked, he hadn't ever been interested in the paranormal, but hearing his friends stories was a good way to pass the time.

"Well, I didn't really 'see' it. Once when I was little-"

"-Er?" Martel interjected with a laugh.

"Shut up! Once when I was **_younger_**, right after I moved north, some of my new friends offered to take me to this grotto at the top of a hill. It was really awesome, but it was kinda late when we left. By the time we went back down, the sun had already set and…well…"

"You got lost, didn't you?" Dolcetto said blankly, with a look of condescending pity.

"It wasn't my fault! It was dark and they were all walking too fast!" She protested. "I couldn't see a thing, so I just picked a direction and hoped for the best. I really thought I was going the right way, then I took a step and nothing was there. I was falling but someone caught my shirt and pulled me back up. I heard a boy's voice ask me if I was alright, then he told me I wasn't even walking down the hill anymore." She said, despair and embarrassment over the incident evidently, still with her. "He held my hand and walked me back. Since I couldn't see him, I just assumed he was one of my friends, friend's. After a while, I saw the lights of their lanterns in the distance. When we were close enough that I could see again, I looked over to see his face and well…" She stared down at her palm, as if the memory was written on it. "It still _felt _like someone was holding my hand, but I couldn't see anyone there.

Everyone gave a little collective shiver, even Martel.

"Stuff like that actually happens?" She asked, dismayed that two of her friends had, had ghostly encounters. Mary nodded and looked contemplative, before suddenly tensing.

"I just realized something..." The girl said weakly. "The first boy I every held hands with...was already..." She didn't even have a chance to finish before Martel and Dolcetto started laughing.

"I swear Mary, only you." Martel snickered.

"Yeah, yeah. What about you Bido? You have any ghost stories?" The girl said, in attempt to change the subject.

"Um, well..." The lizard man said, rubbing the back of his head. "I don't know about ghosts, but some weird stuff has happened to me. I was in this condemned building one time, uh...Um..." His eyes flicked back and forth as he fidgeted with his fingers.

"You can just say you were looting, Bido." Mary rolled her eyes. "It's not like I'm gonna tell anyone." The teen knew that stutter very well, they gang always did it when they were about to talk about something illegal (or in Greed' s case, explicit) that they'd done in the past.

"Eh heh" He chuckled before continuing. "I was searching around the dining room, there was a lot of stuff left behind. I thought it was my lucky day, but then it got really cold." He shivered. "Then, I could hear...whispers. It sounded like someone was right next to me." He was talking really fast by then. The others were worried that he might have a panic attack, knowing how excitable he was. "Then there was this huge crash behind me. I didn't stick around long enough to see what it was."

No one pressed him about it, they could tell he was really spooked.

"So, your turn Roa" Mary said, after giving Bido a moment. "Have you ever seen a ghost?"

The big man thought for a few seconds before shaking his head.

"No, nothing like that's ever happened to me."

"Aww, come on." The girl whined. "There's gotta be something. Everybody's got a scary story." Roa thought for another few minutes.

"Well," He said after a while. "There weren't any spirits involved, but there was this one time I owed Greed money…"

Everybody agreed that, that was much scarier than any ghost.

* * *

A/N: Ta da! I hope that made some of you smile :3 That was really the point of this chapter.

Dolcetto's ghost story was based on "Brickett Bottom" By Amyas Northcote. The others I just made up XD

And yes, Dolcetto calls Mary "Middle Class" Sometimes. They're all very informal, so I can't see them calling each other by name all the time. Since Dolcetto's less than ten years older than her though, he can't very well call her "Kid" Thus another nick-name was born.

So, as my wonderful readers, I wanted to ask for your input on something. When I first started writing this story, I kind of wanted it to follow our flow of time. But it's November here now and it's still the end of August for Mary and the gang =.= So I wanted to ask you, should I speed up my chapter output? or just accept that the story will be about a month or two behind real time for a while? (I'll catch up eventually) The problem with speeding up, is having time to type this all out, on top of that I might get sick of or burnt out for ideas quicker T.T but I'd really like your advice :3 So please review or message me.

Reassurance, I'm not using this chapter as a stall because I have writers block. (I have about twelve or more chapters written in multiple note books XD) The next chapter of the canon arc will be out on Sunday :D I just really felt like writing this.

I hope you had fun reading it! Thank you for coming :D It really means a lot to me. Reviews are not an obligation, but they sure are great :D See you Sunday!


	6. The Next Four Years

A/N: Aaa! So many reviews and follow! *o* Thank you all so much! I hadn't even hoped to get this many when I started this X3 Seriously, you're all awesome, I'll keep writing my best for you guys!

So, one reviewer said that poor Mary can never catch a break. I thought about it for a little and...they're absolutely right XD I hope you all have fun watching her exasperating adventures though.

By the way, I've mentioned a few times that Mary smells like chocolate. This is just because I figure, if she was living with animal hybrids, she'd have some sort of distinct scent. She doesn't just inexplicably smell like that thought, there is a reason. I'm just not telling it 'cus I might use it in a story later XD

But I'm babbling again, aren't I? Time to get on with the story! Have fun :D

* * *

_'How the heck did I end up back here again?' _Mary asked herself for what felt like the thousandth time as she sat across from her new spiky haired boss, in the basement of the Devils Nest. She had absolutely no idea how she'd gotten there.  
After they found her in the alley, the only thing Bido and Dolcetto could think to do with her was to take her back to the bar. Mary was still in a total daze, so she followed without question. It was only when they were practically through the door that she noticed where she was. The two were arguing over what they should do next, when Greed heard them and came downstairs.

"Well half-pint, you heard me. Why were you on the streets? You get kicked out of your hotel or something?" He said, starting to sound impatient. The girl tried to look Greed in the eye, but found that she couldn't.

"N-no...that didn't happen." She stuttered.

_'What's up with her?'_ Greed thought, watching the teenager fidget while her eyes shifted everywhere he wasn't. _'She's acting like she's hiding something' _Several statements on how low Mary was on money and that mornings conversation about apartment costs, crossed his mind. _'Oh no, she's not…'_

"Have you been sleeping on the streets every night?" He asked bluntly. Mary flinched. The girl worried at her sleeve nervously for a minute before mumbling,

"Pr-pretty much since I got here, yeah." still looking anywhere but Greed.

"So you lied to me." Surprised by his sudden menacing tone, Mary flicked her eyes over to him. She froze at the sight of a very angry looking man staring at her. It really came to her attention for the first time how big Greed actually was. She knew immediately that the 'half truth' excuse would not go over very well with him.

"Yeah I…sort of did…Sorry." She conceded, casting her eyes down, afraid to say anything else.

"Why are you doing this?" He said in an even sharper tone.  
The girl bit her lip and thought about her options. If she told him the truth, he'd obviously be angry. Then again, she was way too nervous to lie and even if she wasn't, she had a feeling he'd be able to tell.

_ 'Lesser of two evils I guess.'_ Mary gritted her teeth as she thought.

"When I left for Dublith…" The girl started shyly "I took all my savings with me. The agreement with my parents was that if I ran out of money before I found work, I'd come home, regardless of the scholarship. I thought I'd be able to find some right away, but after a few days of searching, it didn't look like I'd ever get a job." She took a deep breath and fussed with her hair. "So I decided to cut as many expenses as possible, so I could stay and look longer. I had enough to last me another week or two at lea-" In the midst of her monologue, Mary had plucked up the courage to look at Greed again. She immediately regretted the decision. He looked even angrier than before.

"When was the last time you ate?" He asked out of nowhere.

"Huh? This morning." She was so taken off guard, she answered immediately. A shiver went through her, that had been a bad answer, now he looked absolutely livid.

Greed knew what it was like to want something, better than anyone else did, actually. So the fact that the girl was going to extremes to get what she wanted didn't bother him.

_'What dose piss me off...'_ He thought darkly as he glared at the teenager. _'are self sacrificing idiots who thought they were invincible and nearly get themselves killed!'_ His ire was even more severe if the "idiot" happened to belong to him.  
He remembered one incident where the gang had fallen on really hard times and barely had enough money for food. Dolcetto decided on his own to only eat one meal a day. Greed chewed him out for that so much when he found out that, the poor dog chimera's ears were ringing for a month. At least Dolcetto was a trained solider and modified human, not a fragile half-pint teenager.  
What Greed really wanted to do, was give the kid the riot act of her life, but he already knew that that probably wouldn't work with her. The girl hadn't even known him long and she regarded him as an equal. He would just lose a possession and have to go back to processed food. He shuddered. No, he wasn't going to let that happen.

_'B__ut she's not getting off for being such a little idiot either.'_

"I guess it can't be helped." He grunted after several minutes of tense silence. The others flinched, expecting him to yell. "You'll rent one of the rooms here, all other parts of the deal stand but I cut your salary by a third."  
Mary stared at him blankly, as did Dolcetto and Bido. That was probably the last thing they'd been expecting him to say.

"What?"

"You heard me. It's obvious you can't take care of yourself." He snapped. "I'm all for surprises but I don't want to wake up one morning and be surprised by no breakfast 'cus my cook has been raped or murdered." The girl tensed. She always knew that, that was a possibility but she'd suppressed the thought. The way Greed talked brought it back to the front of her mind, making her realize how stupidly dangerous what she'd done was. Still, she wasn't ready to cave yet, especially after that _'you can't take care of yourself'_ comment.

"And if I say no?" Her injured pride pushed her fear back enough to bring anger to her voice.

"Then you're fired." Greed said flatly. "The door's that way. Good luck finding another job."  
Mary's eyes went wide, she hadn't been expecting him to say that either.  
The homunculus watched another internal battle start in the girl, but he already knew what the outcome would be. Anyone who was desperate enough to sleep on the streets would be desperate enough to take him up on his offer.

"Fine!" Mary chocked out at length, slamming a hand on the table. "But my conditions from before still stand too! You try anything…" She left the sentence to finish itself. "I'll need a room that stays dry though." She finished, looking away from Greed again.

"That's not a problem." He said with a slight grin, pleased at another victory against the girl. "I don't think a runaway _brat_ is in any place to be negotiating terms, though."

"I didn't run away!" She shouted angrily. "Besides, even if I did, I'm an adult. It's not like you'd have anything on me." She crossed her arms in a defiant manner.  
Greed scowled. So, she was stupid and ungrateful? She was proving to be a bigger headache than he'd originally thought.

"Let's see, where'd you say you live again, East Central?" He said, at the wall phone in less than a second. "Your last name's uncommon, so it shouldn't be hard for the operator to find your number. I'm sure your parents'd _love_ to know what you've been up to." His mouth was curved into an evil smirk.

"Wha-? Wait! No! Please!" Mary cried, over at his side lightening quick. "You're right! I was stupid! I'm sorry! Just please, please, please don't tell them!" She pleaded, hanging onto his dialing arm.  
Greed's smirk grew.

_'That's more like it.' _He thought as he put down the receiver. The girl sighed in relief and released the death grip she had on his wrist.

"What do you say?" He asked suddenly.

"Huh?"

"What do you say to the person who lets you stay in his house?" His smirk was still in place. Mary gaped, he couldn't be serious, could he? She thought in shock. One look at his smug face told her otherwise.

"I'm waaaiting…" He drawled.

"…...Th-" She swallowed. "Thank you for letting me stay here…...Mr. Greed." She chocked through clenched teeth as she gave a small bow.

"There! Now you're getting it!" He said, patting the girl on the head. "Dolcetto! Find a room for her. She has to get up early and make breakfast after all!" He laughed and strutted out of the room.

The other two were left reeling.

_'What the hell just happened?'_ They thought at once. Still in a daze, they crept up next to the girl. Her expression was fairly unreadable, but her fists and jaw were clenched and she was lightly shaking all over.

"He-hey, you alright?" Dolcetto asked girl muttered something under her breath,

"…The ne….fo…...s…k"

"What?" The pair asked, not able to make out what she was saying, even with their hearing.

"The next four years are gonna **_suck_**_._" She said darkly.

* * *

That night, after Mary was given a room, four chimeras and one homunculus had a meeting in the bar. It was not a long conversation. Greed had already made up his mind, and they knew that when that happened, it was nearly impossible to change. If he had done it a few days ago, the other four might have had more to say about it, but after watching the girl for a while, they were all fairly certain she was harmless. None of them loved the idea, but they all felt that they could live with her being there. The gang became even more tolerant of it after they had breakfast the next morning.

Around mid day, Mary was sweeping out the room she'd be renting. It was small and unfinished, like the rest of the basement and was furnished with an old bed and a night stand. There was also an ragged bookcase in the corner that Dolcetto said had been there since Greed bought the place. It really wasn't a bad room, all in all, though everything was covered in a substantial layer of dust.

_'Here lie Mary. She was killed by dust.'_ The girl thought ruefully as she gave an asthmatic cough.

"Are you okay?" A voice from the doorway made her jump. There stood Martel, leaning against the frame, looking surprised and a little worried. "You sound like a chain smoker."

"Oh yeah, as hard as it is to believe, that's just the way I cough. Sorry if I scared you." Mary said, she was used to people telling her that, but it was still a little embarrassing.

"Nah, don't worry about it." She waved off. A few seconds of silence passed before she noticed something. "Is that all you brought with you?" Martel asked, pointing at the girls battered brown suitcase.

"Hm? Oh no, not exactly anyway. I have stuff being held for me at stores around town, now that I know I can stay in Dublith, I can actually go pay and pick them up." She continued to sweep.

"You want help?" Martel asked.

"Eh? Y-you don't have to. I can, probably manage on my own." The younger woman said, trying to sound confident in her abilities, but she couldn't stop the 'probably' from sneaking in.

"It wouldn't be a problem, I'm bored anyway." She said with a shrug.  
Martel's motivation really _was_ part boredom, though mostly she wanted to keep an eye on Mary. They all liked her pretty well already and she didn't seem to be a threat, but after all she'd been through Martel wasn't going to take any chances. There was also an ulterior motive that she wasn't even fully conscious of. No matter what she said, having only male friends did get to her sometimes. If Mary was going to be around she wanted to at least get along with her.

"We could probably get Roa to help too. One condition though," The snake chimera added, not willing to give up her time without some kind of payment. "You make my pick for dinner tonight." She grinned. Mary stared for a moment, then chuckled.

"Alright, deal." She said with a smile. "Really, thanks a lot. I should be ready in a few minutes."  
Martel left to see if they could recruit Roa, leaving Mary sweeping happily. Things actually seemed to be going okay, she hoped her and Martel could be friends.

"How's the room working out for ya kid?" Said a smooth voice that made her jump again.

_'Ah, speaking of "friends" '_ She thought sarcastically.

"It was kinda dusty, but it's actually pretty nice." She said, turning to see Greed standing in the doorway. Her mood dropped when she was him staring at her expectantly.  
"…Thank you." She mumbled, looking away. She knew that he wouldn't leave her alone till he heard that, so she just figured she should get it over with.

"Huh, better." He sighed, which just irritated Mary to no end.

"Though, you know, if you wanted a room with a window, there's space upstairs." The teenager stopped and thought for a moment.

"Well actually, since the projects I'll be doing are gonna require good lighting that might be-" She stopped short when she remembered something that had been mentioned by Bido a few days before. "...Wait, isn't upstairs... your private floor." Mary hissed, gripping the broom so tight she was surprised it didn't snap.

_'This is even funnier than I expected.' _Greed thought wickedly. If the girl was going to cause him so much trouble, he figured he should at least get a little amusement out of it.

"Maybe." He replied, smirking slightly.

"Our agreement…" She said quietly, voice and body trembling with anger.

"Hey I'm not breaking it." He said, raising his hands. "I'm a man of my word. I said I wouldn't touch you and I won't. But I don't remember either or us ever saying that I couldn't tease you." Greed's features slid into a signature smirk. Mary stood looking furious, but she didn't do anything. Probably because of the amount of leverage she knew Greed had over her.

_'Well that's no fun.'_

"Come on, you didn't really think I'd let _you_ stay on _my_ floor did you?" He drawled.

Impulse control wasn't one of Mary's strengths.

"Get out!" She screamed, throwing the broom at his head like a javelin. Since he'd been goading her, Greed was expecting an attack of that sort and he easily ducked out of the room. He was already halfway down the hall, laughing all the way, when Mary yelled again.

"Don't you **ever** come in here again!"

"I own the place half pint, I'll go anywhere I want." He called back as he disappeared around a corner.

Mary stared after him for quite a while as she huffed in anger. Eventually she grabbed her failed projectile, then went back into her room and slammed the door with almost superhuman strength.

Martel and Roa leaned over from around a corner, Dolcetto peaked out behind the door of his room.

"This might've been a bad idea," The dog chimera said to the other two. "She'll learn our secrets when she finally tries to kill Greed."

* * *

A/N: And thus ends the first arc. How was it? I went over this chapter a million times, so I hope it was believable. I've intended this from the very beginning, so a lot of you probably saw it coming ^_^; but I really wanna know what you think. I hope it didn't feel contrived at all.

Poor Mary, things are _kinda_ looking up for you. *sweat sweat* Another chapter should be out next week! Hope you come to read it :D  
As always, reviews are not require, but they are really awesome to get X3 ~Pandoru

Side note: 1) I forgot to mention this in earlier chapters, but yes, I decided the legal drinking age in Amestris would be 18 (All that 21 stuff never made much sense to me :p)

2) Dose anyone know how to pronounce Roa's and Dolcetto's names? I'd just like to know, thanks :D


	7. Raspberry Champagne

A/N: Hey all! It's still technically Sunday! Haha, this chapter somehow got incredibly long, so I understand if no one comments for a day or two because it'll take forever to read XD Speaking of comments, oh my gosh you guys! All the reviews/follows/favorites! It's freaking amazing! You're all the best :3 I shall keep writing as best I can for you!

So, the plot for this chapter centers around a made up Amestrian holiday, The Fall Equinox. Since they seem to be a pretty solar based race, I figured the equinoxes and solstices would take the place of major Earth holidays (The Fall Equinox is a bit like thanks giving, but instead of really giving thanks it's just a day to eat good food because the harvesting is all over XD) I really hope you enjoy this chapter! Like I said before, I understand totally if it takes you a while to read the whole thing.

Note: For short time skips a * is used, for entire scene changes a horizontal bar will be used.

Speaking of horizontal bars, you're probably looking for the one that marks the start of the story aren't you? Look no further!

* * *

Time passed quickly at the Devil's Nest. Progressively, the gang started to trust Mary Calvados. For the first few days they had Bido tail her wherever she went as a precaution but as they all sort of expected, she proved to be just an ordinary university student. Well, ordinary aside from the fact that her tuition could provide for a small country for over a year.  
In about two weeks time, they'd all accepted her as an honorary, junior member of the gang. (Honorary, because she didn't really do anything that could be considered gang like. Junior, because none of them believed she was eighteen.) Greed watched in amusement as the chimeras adopted more and more older sibling like behaviors. He was a little surprised at how fast it happened, they must have missed interacting with normal people more than he'd thought. Mary didn't seem to mind though, being from a large family to begin with, it actually made her feel welcome. Greed himself, meanwhile, was taking full advantage of the teasing loophole in their contract. From the very first day, he nagged and pestered the girl constantly. He'd also adopted the annoying habit of ruffling her hair, like a little kid's, periodically. Mary tried to take it all as a sign of acceptance, but it still irritated her to hell most days.

In the late morning of the third Saturday she'd been staying there, Greed came pounding on her door.

"Hey half pint! Get up! I'm hungry!" He called. A few seconds passed with no response. Greed gave a 'tsk' and barged in.  
The group had soon learned that Mary was an almost unnervingly deep sleeper. (The best they could figure, was that she was compensation for always being so jumpy when she was awake.) It had happened more than once that the girls alarm clock would go off and one of the other basement residents would have to come in and turn it off themselves, then usually yell at her for waking them up.  
Sure enough, the teenager was curled up on her narrow bed, giving no indication that Greed's shouting had disturbed her in the slightest.

"Hey brat, it's breakfast time." He said, loudly stomping into the room. "Get up and do your job." The girl opened one eye and stared blearily at him, not entirely awake yet.

"It's the Equinox…" She mumbled as she curled back up. "Can't it wait?"

"The Equinox isn't until tomorrow." He grabbed the blanket and tugged it off. "And, no."

Mary grumbled and sat up as Greed left the room. She considered ignoring him and just going back to sleep but she knew he would probably just come back and flip the bed over, or something of that nature, if she did. Reluctantly, she got dressed and stumbled into the main room.

"Morning…" She mumbled absently.

"Shit, you _are_ alive. Now I owe Bido five hundred cens." Dolcetto chuckled from his spot on the couch. The whole gang was strewn about the room. Since they actually had something to look forward to at meal times now, they were all generally present when Mary was cooking.

"What was that? It sounded like 'Please burn my breakfast.' Well if you insist…"

"Hey! Don't waste my food, brat!" Greed barked.

"You know guys," Roa said quietly. "She _does _prepare all our food…" He nervously glanced at Mary's irritation induced, twitching hands.

"Oh, you don't need to worry about that." Greed waved him off. "Right, kid?" Mary twitched a little more.

"It's true." She conceded, though she still looked annoyed. "I'm _way_ to cheap to waste food poisoning you guys." For some reason, the group wasn't very consoled by that statement.

"So you really aren't going back home for the Equinox?" Martel asked, while she handed Mary the eggs for the omelets the girl had been asked to make.

"Nah." She sighed, looking a little sad. "My family practically lives on the East-North border, so it takes a whole day's travel to get there, and since it's only a three day break I'd have to come back right away. Plus…" She dropped her head forlornly. "I don't have the money for train tickets." Greed snickered, while the others either shook their heads or gazed with pity.

"You know, you probably shouldn't have picked a university that your grand children are going to be paying bills for." Dolcetto stated.

"Thanks, captain hindsight." She groaned despairingly.

"Do you guys do anything for the Equinox?" The girl asked as she finished the first omelet, which of course, went to Greed.

"We go out to eat!" Bido, who'd won the rock-paper-scissors match for the next omelet, said excitedly.

"Seriously?" Mary said, never knowing the gang to go anywhere but their own bar.

"Yeah, we all save up and go to a fancy place." Martel said with a look of anticipation.

"What about the bar?"

"Everyone who's anyone is doing something on the Equinox." Greed said, scarfing his food as usual. "The only people out for our kind of joint are the drunkards that can hardly pay in the first place. But, if you wait till all the inevitable family disputes are over, there are packs of people looking for a secluded place to drown their sorrows."

"And that's when we open." Dolcetto finished with a crooked grin as Mary handed him his breakfast. He couldn't help but notice it was a little singed.

"The suckers'll pay sky high." Bido snickered. Roa was sitting at the table, nodding sagely the whole time.  
Mary stared at them blankly for a moment.

"You know…part of me wants to be disgusted by how terrible you people are…" She said, folding another omelet. "But I can't help but be impressed by how good you are at it.

Her comment made them all laugh.

"We don't do anything half-ass'd around here." Greed chuckled.

Once she had finished serving the rest of the gang, Mary sat down to have her own breakfast. While she ate, she noticed the group giving each other back and forth glances, as if in silent conversation. She was about to ask if something was wrong when Roa suddenly spoke.

"You wanna come with us?"

"Huh?" She said in surprise

"It'll be an upscale place but if you're careful, you should be able to afford it." He continued.

"You don't wanna spend the Equinox alone, do you?" Martel asked through a mouthful of egg.

Mary stared for another second while the others watched expectantly. Her eyes flicked over to Greed. Since he 'Was the Boss' (A fact that she'd had reiterated to her many times over the past three weeks) as much as it annoyed her, she knew she had to get his approval if she wanted to tag along.

"Well, thanks for asking first guys." The man said after a minute, giving Roa and Martel a dark look. "But if you can pay, I don't see why not." He shrugged.  
In spite of herself, Mary gave a big smile, happy that she had something to do for the Equinox.

"Just try and dress up like an adult, kay?" Greed added. "I don't want my image getting tarnished by being seen dragging a little kid around."

"I **_am_** an adult, you jerk!" She snapped. The fact that she looked younger than she was, was another thing Greed seemed eager to beat into her head.

"Suuure you are, and I'm two hundred." The chimeras all gave an involuntary jolt when he said that.

_'Wait… does that mean he believes her, or…?" _Dolcetto thought, giving his master a boggled look.

After everyone was finished, Mary went back into the kitchen to wash the dishes. She was scrubbing out the half-ton frying pan when Martel approached her.

"So Mary, we're uh, going to a fancy place tomorrow and I- Well, most of what I own is um, like this." She picked at the fabric of her baggy cargo pants. "So well, it's been a while and… It's hard by yourself-It's just that…" The woman paused awkwardly. "Look what I'm trying to say is, will you come shopping with me?"

"Huh? Oh, sure." Mary said in surprise, not expecting such a simple request from how much Martel was flip-flopping. "I have some stuff to get anyway so…" The girl stopped when she turned and saw Martel's face. Her usually sharp eyes were glazed over and, for lack of a better word, sparkling. She also wore a broad and rather strange grin. It was actually quite disturbing.

"Um, uh…" Mary stuttered.

"Uh oh." Dolcetto interjected as he lit his pipe. "Mary agreed to go shopping with Martel." He told the others who were starting to take notice.  
Groans could be heard from the other side of the room, Martel cast them all a dirty look.

"Did I, uh, say something wrong?" The bewildered girl asked.

"Word of advice, don't let her near any shops that are out of her price range." Dolcetto stated.

"Try and avoid shiny things too." Roa added.

"What's out of your price range?" Mary asked almost automatically, her present station in life making her quite money conscious.

"Anywhere that doesn't say 'Consignment' on the front." Greed called out. Martel scowled in their general direction.

"Shut up." She muttered, though she looked like she wanted to say something far more colorful. "Don't listen to them, they're just being guys." Martel said defensively. "So, do you still wanna go?"

"Yeah, of course." Mary said with a smile "Sounds like fun."

"Why are you never that sweet and cute when _I _ask you for things?" Greed grumbled, half jokingly.

"Because whenever I talk to you, I feel like I'm gonna get tricked into selling my soul. Either that or my first born child." She stated matter-of-factly. Ever since that night Greed cornered her into renting the room from him, Mary stood by that fact that Greed was some manner of demon.

"Oh come on, like I'd want your brat after having to deal with _you."_

Mary suddenly whipped around and flung her wet sponge at Greed. Her aim had gotten better since the first time she tried to hit him with something, but he was still too quick for her. Before anyone could blink he'd plucked the projectile out of the air and tossed it back, hitting Mary in the forehead.

"Nice try, kid." He laughed.

"One of the days…" The girl muttered as she rubbed the water out of her eyes. Once more, she renewed her vow to throw something at Greed and actually have it hit.

* * *

Mary quickly solved the mystery of why no one wanted to go shopping with Martel. The very second they entered the retail district of Dublith, Martel disappeared. It was several minutes before Mary caught up with her, about to enter the most expensive store around. It took all of the girl's physical and persuasive power to drag her away. Eventually, she succeeded but before she could take a breath Martel started drifting toward a jewelry shop.  
A half an hour or so passed and Martel had calmed down slightly. Though she was absolutely exhausted by then, Mary couldn't help but smile at how thrilled her companion seemed. They were sitting on a bench taking a break, Martel excitedly looking at the shops around them, Mary recovering from a slight asthma attack.

_'She's like a kid on the winter Solstice.' _The teenager thought with a giggle. _'I've never seen her like this before, guess she hasn't been shopping in a while.' _A few more moments passed and Mary realized that she finally had the opportunity to figure a few things out.

"Hey, it's kinda been on my mind lately…Can I ask you a something?" The girl said slowly.

"What's up?" Martel chirped, eyes still darting from store front to store front.

"Well…what exactly is Greed? To you guys I mean." Martel gave her with a puzzled look. "It's just, how'd you end up together? None of you are related and aside from running errands every now and then, and doing a few things around the bar, I don't really see you guys _work_ for him so-" Mary stopped short when she saw the distant and slightly sad look in Martel's eyes. "Ah! You don't have to tell me if you don't want to!" She said quickly, trying to salvage the situation. "I've just been curious and…" The girl gave up when Martel's expression didn't change. "…sorry if I upset you…"

"No it's okay." Martel said, finally emerging from her thoughts. "It's probably good you asked me anyway, the guys might've made something up, and Greed would've blown you off completely." She paused and gazed out into the street again, though this time not really looking at anything.  
"It's a complicated, and long and kinda sad story. I can't really tell you the whole thing right now." Martel didn't trust the girl quite enough to tell her yet and she knew Greed and the others would be angry if she just went around blabbing their secrets. "You'll probably hear it someday. Till then though, the outcome was pretty much that we owe Greed our lives. He gave us a second chance." Some of the light came back to Martel's eyes. "And he's never given us any real reason to want to leave him, so that's why." She finished brightly and gave a double jointed stretch.

Mary stayed quiet. She knew so little, so nothing she could say would really have meaning. Still, she felt the need reply somehow.

"...Thank you for telling me." The girl said after a minute. Martel smiled.

"No problem."

The pair fell silent, but not in an awkward way. They sat for several minutes more before Mary suddenly gasped.

"Martel! Do you see that?" She cried and dashed off. It was now Martel's turn to chase after someone.

"Hey, what the hell was that about?" The woman snapped irritated when she caught up with Mary in front of an outfitters.

"Look!" The girl pointed excitedly at the window.

"Oh…wow…" Martel gasped in awe. "Eh! But why are you so worked up?" She said, shaking herself back to reality. "There's no way I can afford that."

"No, but you can rent it." The teenager corrected with a sparkling look.

"They-they let you do that?" Martel chocked. Mary nodded.  
The half-snake stared through the window for quite a while. Her face was blank, but Mary could spot longing in her eyes.

"If anything goes wrong, we have to buy it." She stated.

"Oh come on, I've never once seen you trip or spill anything." The girl scoffed. Martel didn't seem entirely convinced though. "Come on Martel, a dress is pointless if it doesn't get worn. You're one of the few girls that could actually pull it off, so you might as well."  
Martel looked at the teenager next to her. It was clear from Mary's tone that she counted herself as one of the girls that couldn't pull it off, and with her short, thicker frame she was probably right. Martel looked back at through the window and stared some more.

"…If anything goes wrong this was you're idea." She finally said, hiding a mischievous smile.

"Eh heh, I'll take responsibility." The girl said with a nervous laugh, as she pulled open the door of the shop. "I'm sure I could pay it off if I cut all unnecessary expenses…..and go back to sleeping on the streets."

* * *

It was early evening of the next day and Bido, Dolcetto and Roa were waiting around the living room. Dolcetto and Bido were passing the time by trying to guess where Roa managed to get a suit in his size, the three were starting to get bored though. As soon as they heard movement down the hall they all turned to look.  
Mary appeared from around the corner. The girl wore a wrapped, pink, sheath dress and had a lace shrug above. She'd curled her hair slightly as well. The trio stared at her wide eyed. Never seeing the teenager as anything but "cute" before, they were all taken slightly off guard.

"What?" She asked when the silence started to get awkward.

"You look good." Roa finally said.

"Y-yeah." Dolcetto mumbled, embarrassed at how easily he'd been stunned. Bido nodded enthusiastically behind the two.

"Oh, eh heh. Thanks." She said with a slight blush. "But just wait'll you see this!" The girl said with sparkling eyes. "Come on out already!"

Martel nervously emerged from the hallway. The tall woman wore a midnight blue, trumpet style dress with a deep V-neck and back. When she held still the fabric looked simple but when she moved, the entire dress rippled with interwoven silver threads that twinkled like stars. Her usually pulled back, dirty blonde hair was brushed over to one side and her makeup (Though the girls would never admit how many times they'd had to redo it) was flawless.  
The three gazed in amazement at their friends transformation. If it hadn't been for the tattoo, they knew they wouldn't have recognized her.

The men were still gaping when a low whistle came from behind them and Greed came walking down the basement steps. He'd somehow managed to find a suit and vest the same, deep burgundy color as his tattoo. Under them he wore a simple black tie and white shirt. Mary would never admit it but it looked really good on him, she couldn't decide whether it made him look more or less like a pimp though.

"Wow." He said, sounding genuinely surprised. The teen, who's smart mouthed ways had only worsened in the past few weeks, couldn't help but take advantage of his dropped guard.

"So…You always take longer to get ready than the girls, Greed?" She commented snidely. Greed stared dumbly for a moment before he realized he'd been insulted.

"Yeah, yeah whatever." He said with sarcasm returned to his tone. "I don't remember inviting you two. Where'd Martel and the half-pint go?"

"Do you even know my real name!?" The 'Half-pint' snapped back.

"Didn't know you cleaned up so well, Martel." He continued, ignoring the girl.

"Oh, uh…Thanks." The woman, who wasn't used to all the attention, said embarrassed. As Greed got closer to the dress, he started looking suspiciously from the article of clothing to the two women.

"What?" Mary asked when he quirked and eyebrow at them for the third time.

"You better not have stolen that." He said, pointing to the dress. "'Cus I sure as hell ain't bailing your asses out if you did."

"We didn't steal it!" Mary shouted, hands twitching in irritation. Greed laughed, satisfied with his revenge on the cynical teen.

"Gotta hand it to ya though kid, I'm impressed. I **_might_** actually believe you're eighteen now." He reached up to ruffle the girls hair but surprisingly, she ducked under his hand and sidled behind Martel.

"You know how hard it is to get my hair to hold a shape? There's no way I'm letting you mess this up!" She gestured to her curls, which remarkably had already lost some of their twist. Greed stared for a moment.

"Fair enough." He chuckled, letting his hand drop. "Well, our taxi should be here by now." He continued, taking Martel's arm and extending his hand to Mary. "Shall we?"

"Sorry, someone beat you to the punch." The girl said as she sidled around him again and linked arms with Bido, who looked very pleased with himself.

"Oh you have _got_ to be kidding me." Greed said incredulously.

"Hey! Don't be rude!" She snapped. "He asked first. Besides, I'm totally dwarfed by you and Martel, least next to Bido I look kinda normal."

"No, you just look like a pair of midgets." Greed muttered, facial muscles twitching. He knew he sort of brought it on himself, but Mary really had developed a disturbing talent for annoying him.  
"Whatever! Our car is waiting!" He barked and dragged Martel out the door.

* * *

"Geez, he really went all out this year. I can already feel my wallet getting lighter." Dolcetto half complained as the group waited for their table. They stood just inside the door of a place that seemed to be half restaurant, half upscale lounge. Very upscale. By high-class standards, it was probably just a casual place, but there were still people wearing cloths and jewelry that could cover the entirety of the Devil's Nest's expenses for a year.

"Wow, I don't think I've ever been in a place like this before." Mary said as they were lead to their table.

"What are you talking about, middle class? Shouldn't you have been going out like this all the time?" Dolcetto, who'd always been poor, even before his chimera days, asked.

"I'll say it again. _Six. Siblings._" She emphasized. "If my family had money to go out like this, do you think I'd have to work for Greed?"  
The man in question looked over his shoulder at the sound of his name. He saw that, while they were all excited, Mary was probably the most. The girl had an energetic smile on her face while her eyes darted all over the room. Greed chuckled a little.

_'Well whadaya know? She really is just a kid.'_

The group was seated at a large round booth near the back. While they waited for someone to take their drink orders, Martel started flipping through the menus they'd been brought.

"How are we supposed to order? Half this stuff is written in a different language!" She exclaimed as she squinted at the tiny print.

"They'll translate for you if you just ask." Greed rolled his eyes, it was always a little embarrassing bringing the group to a high class place. "Just find something you think you recognize."

"Whatever you do, don't pick one at random and hope for the best." Mary's voice came from behind the panel she was studying. "Please, don't ask." The girl said, knowing the others were staring.

"Why is it, that I'm not surprised?" Martel laughed.

"At all." Dolcetto added.

"Shut up." The teen muttered with a slight blush amidst the snickering.

After they could tell what they were ordering, the group was served quickly. The actual eating didn't last long though, most of the group ate fast and went straight to drinking or in Mary's case, dessert. (Martel had actually convinced her to try some wine. The girl made such a face when she tasted it that Greed nearly fell out of the booth laughing.)

The young adult was leaning up against the bar in the corner people watching.  
Dolcetto and Bido had joined a game of cards on the other side of the room. Mary had to wonder what they were betting with, Dolcetto had admitted earlier that the dinner had rendered him totally broke.  
Roa was still at their booth in deep conversation with a severe looking, elderly man. By then, Mary had learned that Roa was in the military for a while, she assumed the two were swapping war stories.  
Martel was thoroughly sloshed and sat at a table with several attractive and equally inebriated, young men. The girl rolled her eyes but didn't really worry, Martel was far too fond of the dress and her drink for that matter, to let anything spill.  
Greed was, of course, lounging on a couch in the center of the room. Two very beautiful women, who Mary was pretty sure hadn't come in by themselves, were nestled under his arms.

_'Causing some of those inevitable family disputes, eh?' _She thought, half appalled, half amused. _'Probably gonna see their boyfriends in our part of town tonight.'_

Since she didn't really have anything to do, Mary was considering either returning to the booth and listening to Roa and the military man or tearing up bits of napkin and flicking them at the back of Greed's head. She'd just reached for her first napkin when a voice made her jump.

"Scotch please, and get another one for the lady, on me." Mary spun around in surprise. A young man, about her age sat at the bar near her. She observed him for a moment. He was tall and muscular, with light brown hair and a smooth, very, very, attractive face.

"I'm sorry but I, uh…don't drink…" Was all she could stutter.

_'Smooth, very smooth. Glad Martel didn't hear that, she'd probably scold me till my ears bled.'_

"Oh? Well then how about some Raspberry Champagne? It's the best non-alcoholic drink, in my opinion." He said with a casual smile.

"…Alright, thanks." Mary said, slipping into the seat next to him, happy that the situation resolved itself.  
"Wait…I know you!" She said, getting a better look at his face. "You're Travis, we go to the same university!"

"Ah! I was waiting for you to realize! And here I thought you didn't remember me." Travis said in mock-hurt. Mary laughed nervously.

"So um, what brings you here? Doesn't your family live in Dublith?"

_'And own a third of it, for that matter.'_ She mentally added ruefully, still a bit jealous of her richer classmates.

"Oh yeah, we had dinner together a few hours ago. I just came out to get a drink." He replied, grabbing two fizzy, red beverages the bartender had just set down. "And it was lucky I did, I wouldn't have run into you if I didn't" He smiled playfully as he handed one of the drinks to her. Mary smiled back a little. He was flirting with her, that was obvious and he was very friendly but something just didn't feel right to the girl. She decided to at least give him a chance though, and took a sip of the drink. It was a bit stronger than she was expecting but it did taste just like raspberries.

"What about you?" He asked. "Don't you have a big family out east?" Mary tensed a little.

"Yeah I do but ah, I…train tickets didn't exactly work into my budget." She said, a bit embarrassed.

"Oh, don't tell me you're spending the Equinox all alone." He said, in what seemed like a sympathetic tone but it still felt a little off to Mary. He almost looked excited at the thought that she was by herself. He may have just been happy to have a chance to talk to her but Mary was still put on edge.

"Oh, well actually no. Since I didn't have anywhere to go my boss and some of his friends invited me here."

"Oh right, you work as a cook or something right?" He said, a little less enthusiastically as he took a gulp of his drink.

"That I do." Mary replied, doing the same. Even if she wasn't sure about Travis, the drink was delicious.

"So, which one's your boss?" He gestured to the rather crowded room.  
Mary tensed again. Should she answer? It would probably start a lot of rumors. Then again, if she lied and the secret got out, it would be even worse.

"That's him." She said, figuring honesty was the best way to go, as she reluctantly pointed to the man lounging on the couch.  
As to be expected, Travis's face went slack, then scrunched up a little.

"Seriously?"

"'Fraid so." She sighed, taking another sip of the drink as she noted a third girl had joined Greed's little party. "He's a real bastard but…" Mary thought over the last few weeks. Even if he was a huge jerk, Greed had helped her out a lot and, apparently, done some pretty good things for the other members of the gang. "He's really not a terrible person."

"Mhm." The boy next to her replied, expression unreadable. "What about these 'friends'?" There was something in his tone Mary didn't quite like, but she didn't really see the harm in just pointing them out.

"Oh, well there's Martel, then Dolcetto and Bido at that table over there and the big guy's Roa." She said, indicating each of them in turn. "They may seem kinda scary but they're actually good people." The girl finished with a smile. Mary hadn't really thought of it much, but she'd become quite attached to the other residents of the Devil's Nest.  
Travis remained silent.

_ 'Ah well, I'm probably gonna havta get used to that.'_ She thought with a little shrug. The teen knew when she took the job that she'd be inviting a lot of misconception and judgment.

"Why don't you come and work for me?" Travis said suddenly. Mary chocked on her drink a little.

"What?" She asked hoarsely

"If I ask, my dad will hire you in a second. We can always use another cook."

"Ah…"

"You'd get your own room and you'd be right next to school." He scooted a little closer.  
Mary started at him for a moment. If Travis and Greed had approached her at the same time there would have been no contest. However much she complained about it though, she liked the Devil's Nest and the people there, quitting at the first offer seemed like a slimy thing to do. On top of that, there was still something about the young man that upset her, she didn't like how close he was getting either.

"That's…really generous of you Travis." She started. "But-"

"Come on, you definitely don't belong with people like them." Travis slipped his hand onto her shoulder.  
That action was the last straw for Mary. A warning bell had gone off in her head, one that hadn't even activated when Greed had tricked her into the red light district. Even if she hadn't known them long, she didn't like the way he was talking about her friends. His tone and the way he spat "them" made his superiority complex plain. Mary found herself getting very angry on their behalf's.

"It was nice talking to you Travis." She said blankly and slipped out of his grip.

"Whatever he's paying you" Undeterred, he leaned in very close to Mary's ear. "I'll double it." The girl froze, but not in the way she did when Greed offered her money.

'S_o…'_ Mary thought, hands starting to tremble. _'That's the kind of person he thinks I am.'_ She gritted her teeth. The teenager would have liked nothing more than to strangle the man next to her but she knew she'd lose her scholarship if she got arrested. In addition to that, Travis's family was powerful if she didn't handle the situation carefully she could end up in a lot of trouble later on. Mary took several deep breaths to calm herself down.

"…Travis…" She said evenly, the boy looked hopeful. "Whenever I take a job, I've always had one condition. It's that my employer never try and take advantage of me." She could see Travis tense up slightly. "As hard as it is to believe, Greed's respected that. Since you don't even seem to respect other human beings, I doubt you'd abide by a simple agreement." With that, she turned and left. Much to her relief, Travis didn't try to stop her.  
When she returned to the booth the old man had gone and Dolcetto had rejoined Roa at the table. From the way they were nervously avoiding her gaze, it was obvious they'd been eavesdropping.

"It's fine, I know you were listening." She stated, sliding back into the booth. If things had gone differently she might have been annoyed but right then, being able to vent to them sounded nice.

"Who was that?" Dolcetto asked immediately, glad Mary wasn't angry at them.

"A guy from my school." She tried to wave him off but her hand was convulsing too much. "He seemed nice, but turns out he's a giant ass."

"Mh, it's a good thing you left." Roa said. "I'm pretty sure he slipped something in your drink."

"He did WHAT!?" Mary screamed. Her outburst probably would have gotten more attention if something more interesting hadn't happened.

**"YOU!"** Someone bellowed, making everyone in the room jump. A man wearing a chef's hat stood in front of the French doors to the kitchen. He was purple with rage and holding a meat cleaver in one hand, with the other he was pointing an accusing finger…at Greed.

"Shit. I forgot." Greed cursed, disengaging from the women flocked around him. "Roa! Looks like it's time we head out!" He called as he dodged the knife and several other objects being thrown at him.

"Right." The Ox chimera replied.  
Before Mary knew what was happening, she was tossed over someone's shoulder and the person dashed out of the restaurant. Since she was face backward, she was able to watch as the irate chef hurled cutlery and curses after them.

By the time they'd run a few blocks, Mary had deduced from the long grey pony tail that it was Roa carrying her so she just went with it, though she was very grateful when he came to a stop in an alleyway.

"That should be far enough." She heard Greed say somewhere in front of them.

"Put us down already, Roa!" Somebody snapped. Mary looked across Roa's expansive back and saw Dolcetto hanging under his other arm.

"Where's Bido?" The big man asked, setting down the two in his arms.

"Little sneak played dumb. Probably laughing his f-ing ass of right now." Greed, who had a passed out Martel tucked under his arm, muttered.

"What the **hell** was that!?" Dolcetto yelled, advancing on Greed.

"I may or may not have screwed around with that guys wife…a lot." He stated, irritated at Dolcetto's outburst.

"And you went to his restaurant!?"

"Hey, I'm just one guy! I can't keep track of them all!"  
That was when the all out shouting match began. It was actually pretty funny to see, the two could have been mistaken for siblings the way they were arguing. They were both talking at the same time, so Mary couldn't really understand what they were saying, but she did make out _'If I had my sword.', 'Dog-boy'_ and _'F-ing Man whore.' _Several times. Somehow, Greed was still managing to gesture flamboyantly, even with Martel handing completely limp in his arms.

_'Don't, don't. They just get mad at you.'_ Mary told herself but she lost all restraint when Martel gave out a loud snore. It started quietly at first then it got loud enough for Roa to hear, before long the sensitive eared, shouting pair stopped screaming at each other and turned to look. The caught Mary supporting herself against the wall, failing horribly at stifling a giggle fit. The group started at the lightly convulsing girl for a moment before Greed gave out a "Tch!" and strode over to the her.

"Something funny, brat?" He asked, grabbing the top of Mary's head.

"N-no," She gasped "Or yes? I-I'm sorry, I'm not even sure…" The teen dissolved into another fit of giggles.

"…Oh whatever." Greed finally snapped, releasing the teens scalp. "We need to open the bar, get moving!"

Greed lead the way back to the Devil's Nest. Dolcetto walked beside him, after releasing his frustrations he went back to his normal loyal self. Mary, Roa and the still unconscious Martel who Greed had handed off, lagged behind, the first still giggling ever so often.

"Well, don't think I'll be writing home about this one." Mary laughed after a while.

"Hm" Roa responded, mouth curving into a slight smile. "Did you have a good time, though?" He asked. The girl thought for a moment.  
Travis had been a big downer on the evening as was getting kicked out but all in all…

"Yeah, yeah I did." Mary answered with a warm smile. Roa's mouth curved up a little more.

"That's good."

* * *

Greed stared at the large brown lump on his couch, he could have sworn a teenager was sitting there before.

"What's your deal?" He asked, lifting the blanket over where he guessed the persons head was. Mary was curled up on her side, her already white skin a few shades paler than usual which highlighted the deep, dark circles under her eyes. She opened her lids a crack and what a look she gave Greed through it.

"I made your breakfast. Now leave me alone." She grumbled, weakly trying to tug the blanket out of Greed's hand.

"Yeesh kid, you're acting like you've got a hangover. I thought you didn't drink."

"I don't!" She groaned, rubbing her eyes. "Least not intentionally." Greed tilted his head.

"Not intentionally? What happened?"  
Mary mumbled something unintelligible at him till she succeeded in recovering the blanket corner and retreated back under it. Greed shrugged. He was curious, but not enough to go through the trouble of making the girl tell him, he would just ask later.

"F-ing Travis happened." A small voice said when Greed had taken a few steps away. The man whipped around. Had he heard that right? The teen was no purist but he'd never heard her say that word before.

"Wah…Who?" He stuttered, still gazing wide eyed.

"Travis." Dolcetto interjected from the kitchen table. "Apparently he's the guy who spiked her drink last night."

"Spiked her drink?!"

Mary didn't really hear the rest of the conversation, she was too focused on going back to sleep. She was about to slip back under when laughter that made her sensitive head pound rang out.

"You serious? A few sips of a spiked drink and you're _this_ hung-over?" Greed jeered. "Little kids really do have a low tolerance for alcohol."  
Mary started to rise and paw around for something to throw at him but about halfway up she decided it wasn't worth it and flopped back down.

"Go awaaaayyyyy." She moaned, curling up even tighter than before.

"Heh fine, just don't be so oblivious next time, will ya half-pint? Having to rescue your sorry ass would be a pain in mine."  
Mary heard the click of Greed's boots leaving the room and relaxed a little. She rubbed her temples in an attempt to alleviate some of the pressure but it wasn't working very well. A few minutes later more footsteps came, duller and heavier than the last ones. She felt the blanket lift off of her face again but didn't bother opening her eyes.

"I'll make you some tea." She heard Roa's deep voice say after a moment. The girl groggily pushed herself up and stared into the kitchen where Roa was filling a kettle.

"Thanks." She said with a weak smile.

"You know, if you ever wanna get revenge on this Travis guy" Dolcetto, who was now sitting on the couch across from her said. "The guy I buy tobacco from could hook you up with something." He smirked and blew a smoke ring. Despite her hangover, the girl laughed.

_'You know someone's your friend when they'll help you drug people who piss you off.'_ She thought happily.

"Think he's got any he's got any hallucinogens? I want it to be nice and humiliating." Mary said with a smirk. Dolcetto chuckled.  
"How's Martel?" She asked after a few minutes of silence, remembering how she could barely keep her friend conscious long enough to get her to change cloths.

"Still out cold." Dolcetto replied. "She's almost as much of a light weight as you. Why were you so frantic she change after we got back anyway?" He talked through, ignoring the dirty look Mary gave him."

"Oh, it's 'cus she's renting the dress. The store'd charge extra if it was wrinkled when we returned…it…" Her voice trailed off and everything was quiet for a moment.  
"Oh shit!" She yelled, making Dolcetto choke on his smoke.

"Blah! What?" He snapped through a cough.

"The dress…" Mary gasped, looking horrified. "We were supposed to return it last night. They're…they're gonna charge us for the whole thing!" She screeched, then bolted out of the room. In a second she was back, carrying a bundle of dark blue cloth with her.  
"Receipt! Receipt! Where was that receipt!?" She cried as she tore through her purse, her still hung-over mind not really able to process the little bits of paper in her bag.

"Uh, um Mary, calm down." Dolcetto stuttered. "A few minutes isn't gonna make a difference now- Hey, wait! You're still in your pajamas! Don't go out like- **At least put on some damn shoes you little idiot**!" Dolcetto roared and ran after the girl who'd just zipped out the door.  
Roa stared squintingly at the portal the young pair had just disappeared through. Dolcetto's angry shouts for Mary to stop grew fainter and fainter.

_ 'Well, the tea won't be ready for a while anyway.' _He thought.

* * *

A/N: How was it? The more I read over it the more I realized it's more like a bunch of little episodes of Mary interacting with different members of the gang, so I hope they were all in character :3

Since this chapter was horrendously long, I didn't get to proof it as many time's as I would like. XP Please bear with me, the next chapter will be shorter and have fewer errors :D So I've want to ask you all for help on something, what do you thing Mary's home town should be called? It probably won't really get brought up, but I want it to have a name dangit! Haha

As always, reviews are not required, but they are greatly greatly appreciated :D  
PS. Just wanted to say it one more time, thank you all so freaking much! Seriously, I'm kinda freaking out XD


	8. Glass

A/N: Greed (doing a poor imitation of a girls voice): So uh, I the author, or whatever I call myself, would like to thank the biggest contributor to this story's success. Spell check. Without which, ever other word in this weird fic would be misspelle-  
Real me: *bursts in* Don't tell them that!  
Greed(normal voice): And why not? You're poor word processor deserves a f-ing medal of honor after what you put it through. I'm just giving it a little recognition.  
Me: If it weren't for terrible spellers like me it would have no reason to exist! And stop making me talk about it like it's sentient!  
Greed: Fine, whatever. My informants tell me that Alphonse Elric is hiding in your house somewhere. I'm gonna go find him *leaves*  
Me: Al...? *realization* Greed wait! It's just a plushy, not the real thing! It doesn't even have a blood seal! *sigh* Well first things first, as usual, thank you all so much for the reviews, follows, favorites and views! I really never imagined this story would get popular and I'm just freaking amazed right now. (Seriously, I looked at the stats, I've gotten hits for all over the world! You guys are amazing!) I hope this chapter is to your liking :3 a little more character and plot developments in this one :D  
Greed*distant yell*: You have a plot?  
Me*ignoring*: Well, I'm yammering again ^_^; You guys have a chapter to read and I have to go rescue my beloved Al plushy before someone rips it to shreds *Sound of fabric tearing* Gah!

* * *

_ 'Ever since my first day, I've avoided this place at night like the plague. If I needed to go out, I'd use the back, if I left something in here, I'd wait till the next morning. It's never mattered how much Greed and the others pestered me, my answer was always no…so…"_ Mary took a pause from her internal monologue. _"How the **hell** did I end up here!?" _She mentally screamed at her present surroundings, cleaning a tumbler behind the bar of the Devil's Nest.

* * *

It was an afternoon in October when Mary Calvados blundered through the basement door of the Devils nest. She haphazardly tossed her book bag onto one couch then flopped face down, onto the other.

"Rough day at school?" Martel asked, leaning over the teenager. Mary deliberated for a moment, it had actually been a rough _week_ at school and it was still only Wednesday. As she'd foreseen, Travis hadn't taken well to being snubbed. There wasn't anything he could really do to get her in trouble but he certainly had started a lot of unflattering rumors. In addition to that, the Southern Command military recruiter was visiting the school. Though it wasn't either of those things that were bothering her right then.

"My life would be so much easier if I didn't have to wear this damn uniform!" She groaned, waving her, university issued, jacket clad arm. The originally emerald fabric had a large orange stain on it.

"What I wanna know," Dolcetto called from somewhere in the kitchen. "Is how you got that one stain on your back."

"With immense talent, that's how." She replied as she shucked the abused coat and loosened her intricate necktie. Dolcetto chuckled and rolled his eyes.

"By the way, you forgot this, this morning." He continued while he tossed an 'Amestrian to Xingesse' dictionary to her. As he sort of expected, Mary was unable to catch it.

"Eh, it doesn't really matter." She shrugged while the book flew a few more feet then nosily hit the ground. "I already have the basic vocabulary memorized."

"Wait, seriously?" Martel asked.

"Yep. Like I said, immense talent." Mary stated with a smirk.  
"So what are you guys up to? There are hardly ever this many of you here in the middle of the day." She commented, noticing three of the five other Devil's Nest residents were present, the third being Greed.

"Greed asked us to help him decide what kind of alcohol to order for the winter." Martel replied with a slightly amused look. Greed knew quite a bit about alcohol but since it was an ever evolving field, he usually would call on someone who was up on the times (In other words, born in the last century.) to help him.

"It's such a pain. I'll never figure out why those damn-…People, insist on having different kinds of liquor for different times of year. It's not like it really matters after a drink or two anyway." Greed snapped as he brooded over the order form. He mentally cursed himself for almost saying 'Humans' instead of 'People'. That certainly would have been interesting to explain.  
Mary stared for a moment but just shrugged it off, assuming Greed stuttered because he wanted to avoid cursing too much in front of her. He did regard her as a "little kid" after all.

"Don't people usually wanna drink warming drinks in the winter? Like brandy and rum." She said, walking past them all to the kitchen. "Whiskey in coffee is supposed to be good too."

"Yeah, those aren't bad ideas-" Greed's voice came, then suddenly stopped with a clatter. Mary jumped and whipped around at the sudden noise, she saw that Greed had spun his chair and was staring at her.

"What?" The young woman asked, a little annoyed that he'd scared her.

"Those weren't bad ideas." He repeated in a blank sort of shock.

"I don't know if you think that counts as a compliment, but I'm not saying 'Thank you'."

"You don't drink." Greed said, ignoring the girl. "So how do you know that?"

"Oh yeah, I guess it is kinda weird I know that stuff, isn't it?" She rubbed the back of her head, remembering the few times she'd tasted liquor when the gang was present and how violent her reactions had been. "My mom taught me."

"Your _mom_?"

"Yeah, I guess you could say my relatives all have refined tastes. She had a lot of fun testing new drinks whenever they came over. I learned from watching her experiment."  
The three stared at her blankly. This was the girl who gagged at just a drop of beer, wasn't it? But somehow, everything she'd said about alcohol had been correct.

"What's with the look?" She questioned after an awkwardly silent minute. "Hey, it's a good skill for me to have. Artists rely on social standings; I'm gonna have to attend a lot of events. I don't need to like the stuff but I should know about…it….Greed, what's with the face?"  
In the midst of her statement Greed's expression had gone from shock and befuddlement, to an amused, calculating smirk.

"So your Mom taught you about alcohol?" He asked, expression not changing.

"Well, she called it 'Drinkology' but yeah, enough to get by, why?"

"And you remember everything she taught you?" Greed thought to the myriad of recipes (and now apparently, Xing words) the girl could store in her head.

"I wouldn't say 'everything' but a fair bit, why?" She asked again, getting irritated.

"Kid," He asked, striding over to the girl. "How'd you like another job?"

* * *

"How the hell did this happen?" Mary mumbled hollowly as she stood behind the bar, still not entirely sure how she'd been coerced into doing so.

"Hey, you didn't have to say 'yes' so stop whining." Greed, who was standing next to her polishing a glass, snapped.

"Yes I did! You saw what my tuition costs!" She snapped back, remembering a time that she'd accidentally left one of her bank statements out unattended; the first thing Greed said to her when she came back for it was if someone missed a decimal point.  
Greed snickered a little.

"It's not _my_ fault that you're going to a school you can't afford."

"Look at it this way, there are _way_ worse things you could be doing." Martel said as she leaned up against the bar.

"I suppose…" Mary grumbled. A few minutes passed.  
"Wait, why are you back here anyway?" The teen asked Greed, she'd been so wrapped up in self pity that she hadn't really registered the man next to her all the way. "All I've ever seen you do is loaf around on that couch." There were a few times that she had to pass the hall door that led into the bar when it was open, and every time that's where Greed was.

"Hey, don't forget I own the place, brat." He said, annoyed. "I don't just sit on my ass all the time. I only bow out once the chicks get here."

* * *

Dolcetto watched everything from his usual bar stool in the corner. The small man's brows were drawn and he was incessantly fidgeting with his sword. He thought back to his conversation with Greed earlier that day.

~8*8~

_"What are you playing at Greed?" He snapped at the back of the homunculus's head. Greed turned to face the shorter man down the hall._

_ "Huh?"_

_ "You heard me." Dolcetto said, crossing his arms. He was usually much more easy going, so there was something really bothering him right then._

_ "What? You mean that?" Greed jerked his head back toward the main room, which wasn't too far away. "I offered the kid a job."_

_ "In the bar!" Dolcetto said, struggling to keep his voice down._

_ "Yeah, so? We need a new bartender. You said it yourself that Roa was scaring people off." The chimera flinched at having his own suggestion turned against him. "The way I see it," Greed continued "If a scary bartender get people to stop buying drinks, then a cute barmaid-"_

_ "You're using her as bait!?"_

_ "Geh, no need to yell." He snapped as he grabbed the front of Dolcetto's shirt and dragged him further down the hall._  
_ "Who else'd do it? You? You're almost as scary as Roa sometimes, dog-boy and don't even get me started on Martel. Besides…" He gave Dolcetto a look, obviously remembering all the disastrous times the chimera had tried to make any drink more complicated than water. The smaller man looked away embarrassed. There was a moment of silence while he decided what to say next._

_ "…You're right, Mary is cute." He said with a hardening expression. "And all the scum-bags that frequent the bar will know she's here if you make her do this." Greed saw Dolcetto's hand twitch toward his sword._

_ "Down boy." He said, getting even more irritated. The dog chimera must have been taking lessons in back talk from the resident teenager. It was incredibly annoying but Greed couldn't help but be a little impressed that Dolcetto had the guts to stand up to him._  
_ "I'm not making her do anything. I offered, she accepted and don't forget," He turned away from the young_ man,_ "She belongs to **me**." He said quietly as he started walking away. "I don't let my stuff get hurt."_

_~8*8~_

Dolcetto pulled himself out of his thoughts and returned his attention back to the pair behind the counter. Greed was mocking Mary for being too short to reach a good third of the bottles.  
Most people would have just been more worried after Greed's "reassurance" earlier but Dolcetto knew better. He'd learned it a long time ago that the only way Greed could really admit he liked or cared about something was to call it_ his_ (From a pack of cigarettes, to a city, to a person.) Still his possessive terms were unsettling at times, he had to remind himself that Greed had made a promise to not touch the girl. Greed was by no means an example of self discipline but he was very strict with his personal principles and breaking a promise fell into the realm of lies. No, Dolcetto didn't have to worry about any internal threats, he didn't really need to worry about external ones either. When a centuries old super-human said you weren't going to get hurt, you generally didn't get hurt. Still though, he couldn't feel at ease.  
Dolcetto groaned, he was not used to this kind of stress but in that case his canine instincts were taking over. The residents of the Devil's Nest were his pack and Mary was its youngest, weakest member.

_'If I don't like how things are going, I'll step in. For now, I'll just watch.' _He finally compromised.

* * *

_'Honestly, what keeps getting me to do this stuff?" _Mary asked herself as eight o'clock struck and some drunkard almost immediately ambled in. _'Nah, scratch that. I know exactly what, money and the fact that I don't have any.' _She thought despairingly. Even with the job and the scholarship, she still had monstrous bills piling up and that's when she didn't spend any of the earnings on personal stuff.  
'_Well, every great artist did something crazy right? Maybe it's a sign…?' _She knew she was grasping at straws but it was better than nothing.

0*0

For the first little while, Mary mostly stood back and watched while Greed served. It was actually pretty impressive, whenever someone sat down at the bar, Greed would have their drink poured almost before they could ask for it.  
Though she wasn't idle the whole time, the girl had a fair amount of jeers and cat calls to deal with. Dolcetto kept a close eye on her but he fortunately, didn't have much to worry about, Mary seemed to handle herself just fine.  
Greed found it a bit impressive but very unnerving how she was somehow able to switch from polite and cheery to a total, blank, iciness in less than a second.

"Remind me to wear long sleeves next time." He muttered to himself, shivering as Mary went into cold mode after a customer made a rude comment about her breasts.

"You say something?" The girl asked, back in normal mode again faster than he could blink.

"Oh uh, nothing…"  
_'Geez, if it weren't for that baby face she could be as scary as Roa.'_

Mary started to relax some after a half hour passed. Like the Devil's Nest itself, bartending wasn't nearly as bad as she had thought it would be. True to his word though, as soon as the first few women entered, Greed abandoned her.

"Well, you should be able to take it from here kid." He said as several, very pretty and very scantily clad, girls waved him over.

"Eh! What?"

"Don't worry, Roa'll take over for you at eleven." He ran his hand through the girls hair as he passed, ignoring her objections. "Unless, of course, you end up not being able to handle it." He said offhandedly with a smirk.  
The teenagers usually soft face, hardened.

"Go sit down." She said darkly and continued serving drinks. Greed laughed.

0*0

After Greed left, all was well…for about five minutes. Nothing had gone horribly wrong yet but people were getting served much slower. If she wasn't a cute girl, Greed knew she would be getting cussed out way more than she already was.

_'Wonder if she really can handle it?'_ He mused as another person complained how long their drink was taking.

"So, who's the lil' cutie Greed?" A woman with long, silver and black hair, asked as she draped an arm over his chest.

"Oh, her?" Greed replied, looking at the woman who had deep green eyes. Chrystala, she'd been his customer and consort since he'd opened. "That's Mary, she's a new employee."

"She's a little young for you though, isn't she Mr. Greed?" Ruby, the girl curled up on his other side, giggled. He looked at the woman with short dark hair, in actuality, Ruby was probably only a few years older than the teenager behind the bar.

"She's older than she looks, besides it's not like that."

"It can be any other way with you?" Lauraine, a woman with curly gold hair, laughed.

"Apparently." He chuckled. "She wouldn't even stand near me till I promised not to do anything to her.

"Really?" Chrystala said, a little coy but also surprised. "With most girls it's the other way around." She smirked.

"Come to think of it, I've seen her wondering around before tonight." Lauraine said. "What exactly does she do?"

"She cooks" Greed paused "…And rents out a room in the basement."

"So, she cooks for you, lives in your place but…" Ruby giggled again.

"She doesn't even seem to consider it." He shrugged

"Quite a character, hm?" Chrystala chuckled.

"I guess."  
_'Maybe that's why'_ Greed thought _'I like messing with her so much.'_  
He hadn't admitted it to anyone (especially Dolcetto, after all the fuss earlier.) while he had been thinking having her bartend would improve business, what he really wanted was to see was how Mary would react to the situation. Everything was fifty-fifty with that girl, sometimes she did exactly what he expected others, she was completely off the wall. It was a trait he found very interesting and, after two hundred years of a lot of same old, same old, quite amusing.  
He glanced over at his personal enigma, who was looking more and more flustered.

_'Gonna be interesting to see how half-pint'll take this.' _ He smiled, then leaned back to watch.

0*0

The initial rush ended shortly after that and Mary began having an easier time. Greed got bored and started diverting more attention to the women immediately around him. Just when he'd nearly forgotten that the girl was even there, a shattering sound brought her back.

"You little idiot!" A man at the bar shouted. In front of him were the scattered remains of a glass with Mary open-handed, over it.

"I-I'm sorry! I'll fix it right away!" She said shakily. Dolcetto was in the corner looking ready to attack if the man didn't accept her apology. Greed groaned and put a hand over his face.

_ 'Maybe this was a bad idea.'_ He decided to reserve judgment though, till he saw how Mary would handle the situation.

She scraped up the shards with her small fingers and used a cloth to soak up the drink. What she did next, laid in the unexpected half of her fifty-fifty odds. Instead of throwing out the debris and getting a new drink, she piled the glass and soaked rag in the center of the counter then took a small round container from her pocket and proceeded to paint around the fragments with some black substance.

_'She's not…is she?'_ Greed thought as those around the bar stared, perplexed. He stood up just in time to see the girl slam her hands down on either side of transmutation circle. There was a small flash of light and a static crackling.  
In the circle, atop a neatly folded napkin, stood a tall glass of amber liquid.

"The glass is probably thinner now, so please be careful." She said as she handed the shocked man his new/old drink. He shakily took the cup and stared, Mary looked at him expectantly with round, grey eyes. Cautiously, the man took a sip.

"It-!" He gasped in shock. "It tastes better than before!" He gazed back at the girl. "How did…?"

"Oh, that's probably because no sediments got transmuted." She said, rubbing the back of her head. "There's probably a little less drink in there than before though, sorry about that."

"Ya never told me you were an alchemist, half pint." Greed suddenly appeared next to them and snatched the glass out of the man's hand.

"I'm no alchemist, all I can do are parlor tricks." She waved him off as she wiped up the remnants of the transmutation circle, which turned out to be drawn in eye makeup. "And I know I'm short by the way, you don't _have_ to reiterate it every few minutes."

"Using words that are bigger than you make you sound pretentious." He said absently while holding the now crystal clear drink up to the light. Mary chocked out a sound somewhere between a cough and a curse.  
"Where'd you learn this stuff?" The girl tensed slightly, when he glanced at her face she had an expression that indicated Greed had brought up something she didn't like to talk about.

"...My grandfather was a state alchemist, so everyone in my family was taught a little alchemy." She said shortly. Greed stared. He'd never seen that look before, then again, he'd never seen the girl perform alchemy before. It shouldn't really have been a surprise to him that there were things the teenager didn't want to talk about, the gods only knew the other members of the gang had plenty of those. He was still curious though but he knew he wouldn't get anymore out of the girl in public.

"Huh, whatever." He dropped the subject for the time being. "Seriously though; alcohol, alchemy, you sure are full of secrets today."

"They weren't secrets." Mary said, innocently. "You just never asked." Greed stared at her again.

"…Heh, you've got a point there!" He laughed. "Keep up the good work, kid!" With that, he turned back to the waiting girls, no one noticed that he took the drink with him.

_'A character, huh?'_ He thought of Chrystala's earlier observation as he took a sip of the drink, which tasted nothing like the swill it had previously been. _'That's a pretty good word for it.'_

0*0

The rest of the evening wasn't exactly smooth sailing, well at least for Mary's health. After the little display, there was suddenly a wave of broken glasses, though none of them were Mary's fault. The girl ended up spending more time reconstituting drinks than serving them. Greed didn't really mind at first, since everyone bought at least one more drink so they could "accidentally" smash it and watch the girl fix it, it was good for business, though after the thirteenth intentional shattering it started to get on his nerves.

_ 'Calm down, calm down. I'm not losing anything. The kid'll fix any of my stuff they break.'_ It took all his self control to not attack as another patron elbowed their drink of the edge of the bar a second later.

By the time eleven o'clock rolled around, the novelty of alchemy seemed to have worn off slightly and people actually started _drinking_ their beverages again. Greed looked over at the bar when he noticed the time, Roa had taken Mary's place and was wiping up the remnants of the eye makeup transmutation circles. Greed walked over to him. On the counter sat one of the girls reconstructed tumblers. Instead of the harsh, jagged edged object it had been before, the short glass boasted long, sweeping curves, like water or silk.

_'Kid sure did out-do herself tonight.'_ He thought, running his fingers over the smooth glass.

"Where'd half-pint get to?" He asked Roa, the big man pointed down and to his left. Greed leaned over and laughed at what he saw. Sitting in the corner behind the counter, where no one would see the girl if they weren't looking for her, Mary had propped herself up and fallen asleep.

"Pfft! First pass out of the night and she didn't have a drop to drink. Hey, hey kid!" While he was talking, Greed rounded the partition then crouched in front of the girl and snapped his fingers close to her ear.

"Eh…? What?" She mumbled confused.

"Shift's over kid, go to bed. You don't wanna fall asleep on the job tomorrow night, do you?" He smirked.

* * *

The next night, when Mary came to work the bar (It had taken several eye-witness accounts to convince the girl that she had indeed, not dreamed the whole thing up and Greed was not tricking her.) she noticed a small, handwritten sign tacked to the edge of the counter. It read:

**_Smash your drink on purpose and you pay double._**

**_ -Greed._**

* * *

A/N: Ta-da! How was it? I had a lot of fun writing this chapter, so I hope you had fun reading it :3 I gave Mary a few more "wins" this chapter, if you can call them that. I figured I needed to let up on her once in a while XD Hopefully I didn't fall into the pit of "sue-dom" but if I did, here's a little extra to counteract it.

Mary: So, uh, you guy's think I'm cute?  
Dolcetto: Uh...Greed: 'Course, you're adorable.  
Martel: But they think you're weak too.  
Greed: Oh, and when I say "cute" I mean cute in the way otters and tiny pastries are cute.  
Mary *sulking in corner*: Why does everything in my life have such a downside? T.T  
Greed: Equivalent exchange kid. Speaking of equivalent exchange, that's the name of the next chapter right?  
Dolcetto: Yeah, but not in the way you'd thin-

Me (author): That's quite enough from you two. *Grabs duct tape*  
Greed: *Trips Dolcetto and runs*

Anyway, thank you for reading! You don't know how much it means to me that people like this story! ^3^ (Well, you probably do. Most of us here are writers XD) I hope I can keep writing fun and interesting chapters for you!

As always, reviews are not required but they are quite lovely :3


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